[wplug] relevance of C for Apps

[Chris Romano]

On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 09:41:00 -0400, Tim Lesher <tim at lesher.ws> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 07, 2004 at 09:44:23AM +0800, Christopher DeMarco wrote:
> > Another huge advantage  of C is its  maturity; this is actually one of
> > the  primary problems people have   with  C++.  *EVERYBODY* knows   C.
> > There's a C compiler  for every platform  I can think of, and  barring
> > OS-specific  APIs, ANSI C  is a well-defined  standard.  C++ OTOH, for
> > all  the  praise so-minded  individuals  may  heap, is  simply  not as
> > widely-understood as C is.
> 
> I've heard that argument for over a decade now.  Most of what you're
> saying about C is now true for C++ as well.  I think one of the
> reasons C++ still hasn't gained as many truly proficient (as opposed
> to acceptable) practitioners is that it has so many more corners to
> the language (for example, generic programming--people are still
> finding strange, wonderful, and horrible things you can do with that
> feature).
> 
> What hurts C++ in the way you mention, isn't time. It's language
> complexity.
> 
> 

>From my brief experience with C++, I would have to agree with you on
that one.  However, it could have been the OOP shift.  Before that I
never had exposure to OOP.  I only used C and VB.  Is there a
simi-widely used platform that does not have a C++ compiler now?

One thing that I don't understand is that Trolltech (I think) has
their C++ libraries that are cross-platform; however, they are not
Free/Open if you do not open source your program.  I would have
thought that someone or some people would have done something like
this and released it with more of a BSD style license.  I guess it's
not worth time or no one has had the need for it.

Chris