Re: [boost] Is boost elitist?

From: Bill Seymour (bsey_at_[hidden])
Date: 2001-05-18 08:33:43

>
> ... is boost in particular, and c++ in general, becoming
> more and more inaccessible?
> ...
> The problem is that the move to greater generality also
> requires greater abstraction, and that the result becomes
> less accessible.
>

Well, the skills needed for implementing, say, operator<<
for some user-defined type, especially in all its i18n
generality, are very different from the skills needed
to write cout << "Hello, World!"  For my own part, I was
able to write code making obvious use of std::vector as
soon as I understood what a template is.  More complicated
code came later.  IMO, novices _can_ make use of the
standard library in simple ways; and they have plenty
of room to advance and plenty of opportunity to continue
learning.  (I know that _I_ have plenty of opportunity
to continue learning.  This is a Good Thing.)

Greg wrote:
>
> A novice programmer should be learning some other language
> (C, Python, or Java, maybe Scheme) before even approaching C++.
>

I'm not sure that's right.  Learning, say, Java first gives
the novice a lot of stuff to unlearn, IMO.

--Bill Seymour