Fun_People Archive
29 Nov
Twin Peaks vs C++

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 93 20:54:50 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Twin Peaks vs C++

 From: mis@seiden.com
 From: John Robinson <jr@ksr.com>
 From: Tim Peters <tim>

I've spent many an unpleasant hour over the past few days wrestling with
C++ for the first time.  We're not afraid to compare!  Following is an
extract, from the start of our 3-megabytes-and-growing report:

                        Twin Peaks              C++
                        ----------              ---
category                TV show                 programming language

parent                  David Lynch             Bjarne Stroustrup

can say own name?       yes                     questionable

humor                   high                    none

clarity                 high                    low

obscurity               high                    over the edge

syntax                  clean                   incomprehensible

scoping                 concentric &            everywhere, like vomit
                        reentrant waves

fun                     high                    low

suspense                high                    high

casting                 inspired                same crap as C

in color?               yes                     no

stereo sound?           yes                     no

protected
inheritance?            no                      yes, but nobody really
                                                knows what it means

giants & midgets?       yes, but nobody knows   no
                        what it really means

villains?               yes                     yes

heroes?                 yes                     no

net group?              yes                     yes

better alternatives?    no                      yes

how many?               none                    all


And so on.  Clearly-- and I'm sorry if this upsets you --they're not as
similar as most believe.  This Net Creature glimpses part of the ugly
truth:

> It seemed obvious to me that not only did C++ miss the whole point of
> object oriented programming, but in many circumstances it's even worse
> than regular C!

Our advice:  Stick to Twin Peaks!  If you absolutely have to learn an
object-oriented language so you won't feel out of place at nerd cocktail
parties, learn Python instead.  It has exactly one keyword in support of
classes, and the full semantics are explained clearly and precisely in a
few pages of text.

© 1993 Peter Langston