Getting the word to conventional programmers

[Cameron Laird]

In article <1111590036.737601.168710 at o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
 <beliavsky at aol.com> wrote:
>Advocates of languages and programming methodologies sometimes compare
>the current version of their favorite language to an old version of
>their disfavored language, resulting in skewed comparisons. For
>example, Conway writes
>
>"Interpreted languages do two things much better than compiled
>languages.
>
>Firstly, they provide more sophisticated programming tools and support
>for more advanced programming techniques. For example, Perl provides
>hashed look-up tables and arbitrary-length arrays as core data types. C
>doesn't even have a proper string type. Likewise, Perl's data sorting
>facilities are integrated into the language, so the sorting criteria
>are directly programmable.
>
>Having all the basic tools of programming (i.e. high-level data types
>and common algorithms) built into the language, rather than having to
>build them yourself, means that you need to write less code to solve a
>given problem."
>
>I think most of the advanced programming techniques he mentions are
>part of the C++ Standard Library.
>

In principle, yes--and that's certainly how C++ fans typically
feel.  Frankly, Perl (and Python ...) implementations remain
more polished and mature than what the STL and allies offer.
I agree in general that people often say, "I like Y in year N
better than I liked X in year N-6, therefore Y is better than
N."  Damian's not particularly prone to that error, though,
and I think, in the case at hand, C++ really *does* continue
to lag.