Re: [RFC] Convert builin-mailinfo.c to use The Better String Library.

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

figo <rcc_dark@hotmail.com> writes:

> http://www.research.att.com/~bs/applications.html
>
> just as Bjarne once wrote in his TC++PL, its hard to teach an old dog new 
> tricks. Its even harder to give quality education about how to use something 
> to someone who doesnt want to learn.
>
> you hate high level, then continue programming operative systems,
> please NEVER DO something else. C++ was designed to give programmers
> high level tools and still being able to take care about
> performance.
>
> portability wont be possible after a standard is published and some
>couple of years given to the compiler developers. C++ had its
>standard in 1998, and add two or three years for compiler development
>= 2002. "Quite recently", way more recently that your last use of C++
>I can bet.

Care to explain why there are still not two numerical C++ libraries
with compatible matrix classes?

What use is talking about portability and high level when a basic
interoperability feature that has been available since the sixties
(more than 4 decades ago) in Fortran has not yet managed to make it
into C++?  C++ by now more or less offers a (somewhat deficient)
standardized way to work with complex numbers, but matrices are still
not standardized in any manner, and libraries won't interoperate.

So C++ should get its head wrapped around the _low_ level problems
first.  It is a bloody shame that it still has not caught up with
Fortran IV (or even Fortran II) with regard to usefulness for
numerical libraries.

It is not a matter of "hating high level" to see that C++ is mostly
focused about addressing the wrong kinds of problems in the wrong
ways.  The pain/gain ratio is just bad.

-- 
David Kastrup