RE: [boost] Re: Customer Friendlier Boost Installation

From: Victor A. Wagner Jr. (vawjr_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-26 10:06:54

At 03:41 2005-05-26, David Bergman wrote:
[deleted]

>The risk is that Boost will inevitably belong to those 50% of the C++
>standard that is never touched by most developers, ever. None of the "C++
>experts" I have interviewed for employment has heard of the keyword
>'typename' or used template template parameters, or used 'virtual' base
>classes.

I "hang out" (too much, according to my wife) on undernet in the #C++ 
channel.  The state of teaching C++ is northing short of abysmal (either 
that or kids (c'mon, I'm 62 in 3 weeks; all you guys are "kids") in schools 
just aren't interested in learning.... I opt for teachers who can't tell 
their * from a hole in the ground).  Near as I can tell, many universities 
are graduating  folks that have maybe 2 weeks exposure to the STL !!!  If 
we can't even get college graduates who know what the _standard_ library 
contains, how are we going to convince them they ought to look at a "3rd 
party" library.

BTW, I think calling it "the boost library" is occasionally 
misleading.  I've taken to calling it a library collection (yeah, I know 
what the word library really means, apparently we don't teach the language 
(american english) very well here in the U.S.) just to try to get around 
the "It's too big" complaint.

>That does not mean that I will stop preaching Boostness for all C++
>developers I meet. Heck, I even try to promote Lambda and MPL, so you are
>probably right, Mr. Abrahams. Boost actually might help reunifying C++
>again, instead of constituting two languages, one for MFC:ers (I have
>developed a lot of MFC apps myself, so do not take the label literally) and
>one for "experts", which it does today, IMEHO.
>
>/David Bergman
>
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Victor A. Wagner Jr.      http://rudbek.com
The five most dangerous words in the English language:
               "There oughta be a law"