Miscellaneous
I just saw on YouTube an interview to Bjarne Stroustrup. Stroustrup began developing C++ in 1979 (then called “C with Classes”), and, in his own words, “invented C++, wrote its early definitions, and produced its first implementation… chose and formulated the design criteria for C++, designed all its major facilities, and was responsible for the processing of extension proposals in the C++ standards committee.” Stroustrup also wrote a textbook for the language in 1985, The C++ Programming Language. The thing I found most interesting was the assertion by Stroustrup that higher levels of abstraction (or maybe the right level?) produces more compact and efficient code. There are two things that need to be matched, on one side the idea of what needs to be done, that is in the mind of the programmer, on the other side is the machine instructions that are executed by the computer. The function of the programming language, or rather the compiler, is to allow the programmer to express his idea clearly, so that the optimizer will produce an executable that its reliable, efficient, and that corresponds to the idea of the programmer. According to Stroustrup, reliability and efficiency are systems properties, and the way to achieve them is by simplification. The central idea is to have a flexible and effective type implementation that allows the programmer to match the types of his application to his needs without a performance penalty.