[boost] Dark Commentary on Programming (was: Re: Boost Incubator Status Report)

On 11 Nov 2014 at 5:33, Rob Stewart wrote:

On November 10, 2014 3:09:48 PM EST, Niall Douglas wrote:

[snip dark commentary on programming]

I'm glad I've not had much experience in the programming world you describe our have been too dense to recognize it.

Ivan Illich and Herbert Marcuse described the same thing a long time ago, and their predictions of how now would turn out were pretty much spot on, right down to Illich predicting the common uses today of the modern internet. Most people just don't see it, but then most programmers are not reading Illich or Bourdieu or watching documentaries by Adam Curtis. A consequence of taking a degree in Management I guess.

For me, finding a library that solves my problems is valuable. Documentation is a big part of that. Usability and packaging are important, but I can deal with issues in those areas when the value is high enough.

I've noticed us old timers don't immediately jump into coding prototypes to test ideas as much as younger engineers which I assume is a Silicon Valley thing. They literally try to hack together something which might work using whatever libraries pop out from the first page of google results. This works well with webby and interpreted languages as you don't really need a build system. I'm betting, as my C++ Now 2014 paper explained, that the future of C++ tooling is as-if all header include compilation, and with that needing build systems mostly goes away as the Modules database of precompiled ASTs making up the link layer is basically the build system. In other words, C++ Modules may make build systems merely compatibility shims. Obviously this is a 2020s forecast, and anything may happen between now and then. It's still a good bet, given present trends. And it would be neat to be able to prototype a whole C++ application by visiting a web page with an online C++ compiler, ticking the Boost libraries you want which assembles them internally into a single precompiled header, and prototyping your solution right there and then in the web browser.

Documentation that caters to Joe Programmer should increase the odds that search engines find Boost libraries, and that such programmers pursue using them once found.

Sure. Though until C++ plays much nicer with other languages, I think C will remain the systems language of choice. Niall -- ned Productions Limited Consulting http://www.nedproductions.biz/ http://ie.linkedin.com/in/nialldouglas/