Re: print and input were warts

Posted Sep 2, 2007 10:13 UTC (Sun) by asamardzic (guest, #27161) [Link]

> then why do you think C++ standard library is put into this "crap" namespace at the first place?

For 400,000 line behemoths. It certainly was NOT added for the one-page programs beginning programmers write.

Yeah, this seems to be common belief, but I'm not so sure about it. I wear kind of instructor hat too, and my experience is that once you teach them to put using namespace std; there and forget about it, they will never learn what was all about it, and will keep using it this way forever. And I don't think doing it always this way is good practice, also I don't see what's the big problem with explaining what's std:: about, and using it even in simplest code.

Perl 6 Essentials came out 4 years ago! I lost patience last year and unsubscribed from everything. I check back in periodically because I find their work fascinating but really, if Perl6 were tradeable, I'd short it. :)

Agreed completely. Switched to Python (for my script language needs) even before Perl 6 process started (not much because of language per se, but mostly because stuff I'm working with - OpenGL, Open Inventor, Qt, MPI, etc. - has more/better wrappers in Python than in Perl), but followed it with great interest anyway. Especially Parrot was looking like great idea to me, unfortunately there was lots of wandering there too, and Python community wasn't that interested in supporting the idea of common runtime...

Anyway, I think the issue somewhat touched above - that of most appropriate language as first programming language - is very interesting, but also very difficult. C is used for this at my place, and I have mixed feelings about it; on the other side, I'd wholeheartedly agree that C++ is completely inappropriate for something alike. During last time, I'm more and more inclined to think that Python actually may be most appropriate...