From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" Date: 2006-11-21T09:51:43+09:00 Subject: Re: Ruby vs Java vs c++ Charles D Hixson wrote: > Operator redefinition can be seriously abused. It's also something > that's very powerful when done correctly. I can see an argument for > requiring that the *standard* operators not be redefined. This > doesn't mean that there shouldn't be user defined operators that CAN > be treated just as any other (virtual) function. Perhaps a > requirement like "A user operator must begin with a '|' character and > contain no whitespace in it's name. It may contain any other > non-control character, and must be delimited by whitespace." would > suffice. Bah! Double Bah! Triple Bah! 1. Every programmer is entitled to define his or her very own personal programming language using whatever syntax and semantics makes the job easy. As long as it's simply a dialogue between one programmer and one machine, who else cares? 2. *However*, the minute a second programmer, a manager, a user, or another machine enters the picture, that programmer needs to communicate with more entities, thus requiring a standardized language *and* a meta-language for communicating about the language. 3. Programming languages evolved from symbolic logic, algebra and English, at least here in the USA and in the United Kingdom, where the initial development was begun during WW II and the early years of the Cold War. (No, I haven't forgotten about Konrad Zuse or the early Russian computers -- they just didn't have much influence on programming languages). C++ has *way* too many features, both syntactic and semantic, to be of much use to me. Sure, any programmer can work in a readable subset of C++, but most don't. Most have their own team dialect of C++. As far as I'm concerned, there's only one usable dialect of C++ -- ANSI C. :) -- M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P) http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/ If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.