problems/risks due to programming language

[Stanley T.H. Chow]

In article <TOMBRE.90Mar1013132 at weissenburger.crin.fr> tombre at crin.fr (Karl Tombre) writes:
>In article <259 at eiffel.UUCP> bertrand at eiffel.UUCP (Bertrand Meyer) writes:
>   From <Ec.3251 at cs.psu.edu> by melling at cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger):
>
>   > Personally, it's the little things like this that make me
>   > believe that everyone should ABANDON C and move on to C++(two others being
>   > function prototyping and strong type checking).  Waddya think?  Wither C?
>
>       How can the words ``strong type checking'' be applied to a language
			    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>   in which any variable may be cast to any type? In which you declare the
>   type of a generic list element to be ``pointer to characters''?
>
>       C++ only magnifies the problems of C, and it does not even have the
>   excuses that can be invoked in the case of a 20-year old design such as C.
>   [and so on]
>
>Am I the only one having regularly the following problem?
>
> [...]      But from time to time, this attitude of his comes up and
>annoys me VERY MUCH : he seems to have difficulties accepting that
>there are other solutions for object-oriented programming, that other
			       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>languages exist and are popular for various reasons. He especially
>tends to become "rabid" when speaking of C++.  [...]

Perhaps you ought to *read* what you quote. It seems to me *you* are 
the one with the attitude problem.

Mr. Meyer stated one explicite objection - that C++ cannot be said to have
'strong type checking'. He also stated one general observation - that
C++ magnifies the problems of C. He made no comments regarding any of
the object-oriented features.

Since the thread is about the "robustness" of languages, and Mr. 
Mellinger suggested C++ for its strong type checking, I think it is
entirely fair for Mr. Meyer to comment on this topic.

If you disagree with Mr. Meyer, feel free to post why you think C++
does have strong type checking.

Stanley Chow        BitNet:  schow at BNR.CA
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Me? Represent other people? Don't make them laugh so hard.