In article <3fdb73ab@news.povray.org> , Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg>  wrote:
>>         POV is currently and will be like this for a while...
>
>   I know, but I don't blame the pov-team for that. It's not a bunch of
> C-coders trying to make a C++ program, but a 10-years old gigantic C program
> where some C++ has been added for certain features, not for the intention
> of being the final thing, but for being an updated bugfix release before
> the complete rewrite in C++ with good OO design.

It should not be forgotten that "good OO design" is a far from trivial
thing.  Especially when it comes down to the ugly little details that look
great in the UML diagram, but are much harder to implement an second sight
... especially if the primary goal is raw performance the temptation to
"just use C" is always around.  And in the end it will always be the wrong
decision.

On the other hand, to master all C++ features well takes years of practical
experience and a gentle growths of abilities:  It would be irrational to
expect to be able to teach anybody a language as complex as C++ from any
number of books or in a classroom.  Far too many teachers make the mistake
of treating "programming" as just a necessary evil of computer science, and
assume programming languages can be used interchangeably!

Of course, this just shows a serious disconnection from any practical
experience at all - and far too many who teach in my home part of Europe
have not realised this yet at all, and I know it happens almost everywhere
else, too...

Or would you rather understand 20 languages - be they for inter-human
communication or computer programming - a little than speak two or three
fluently?  Of course, as many computer scientists have never been made to
realise this very simple fact in school, they never applied it in the real
world, and hence you end up with the majority of computer scientists being
just terrible programmers.  Yet, they start as just that in most jobs, and
hence software quality did not improve despite huge advances in programming
languages in the past 25 years.  To the contrary, system complexity and size
increased by at least three orders of magnitude, but most still program like
25 years ago, desperatly trying to solve their problemsby creating a
mountain of design specifications and other formal methods :-(

    Thorsten

____________________________________________________
Thorsten Froehlich, Duisburg, Germany
e-mail: tho### [at] trfde

Visit POV-Ray on the web: http://mac.povray.org

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