How do hackers drive?

[Bill Moran]

kosmos wrote:
>>I recently started reading Eric Raymond's _The_Art_of_UNIX_Programming_ and
>>it's gotten me taking another look at the way I am in general.
> 
>>Other programmers drive this way as well, correct?
> 
> You have an argument. Every carload of programmers I have ever been with 
> (particularly C-programmers) can agree on where to go, but it's an issue 
> on the specific route to get there. Usually the dominant programmer wins,
> and the driver loses.
> 
> I am in professional training change, Journalism->Programming (a hard, 
> long, math catchup), and if the objective is a 5-minute trip to the 
> store, I find myself meandering aimlessly though the countryside, miles away, 
> looking at the cows and trees.
> 
> I am of course _thinking_ about math and C++ projects, but that's probably
> not a good sign.

I only have this problem when the destination is so well know that I've long
since established the optimal way to get there.

>>The revelation is that I'm starting to understand that many non-programmer
>>_don't_ generally evaluate their car trips like this. 
> 
> Just out of curiosity, how do you think C compares to C++? Or what do you
> think of OO-languages in general?

I've always had a uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach that C++
and other OO languages were more complicated than they needed to be.  The
book by Raymond that I'm reading seems to agree with this idea and is
making me a little more confident about expressing it.

On the flip side, I find the way objects and classes control namespace
pollution to be a wonderful thing ... so I'm not totally against OO
programming.  I'm not 100% sure where I feel it fits in overall, but
Raymond seems to think that it has a special use for special case
applications, such as developing GUIs.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com