From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

Lynn McGuire <LynnMcGuire5@GMail.com> wrote: |-------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"“Is C++ Dead?” | | https://deepengineering.substack.com/p/is-c-dead |
| | |“[. . .] | |[ . .] C++ is the main | |programming language used in many critical systems, including hospitals, | |cars, and airplanes. [. . .] |
|[. . .] |
|[. ..]”" | |-------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Oh dear!
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

On 12/03/2026 19:46, Nioclás Pól Caileán de Ghloucester wrote:

Lynn McGuire <LynnMcGuire5@GMail.com> wrote: |-------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"“Is C++ Dead?” |
| https://deepengineering.substack.com/p/is-c-dead |
| | |“[. . .] | |[ . .] C++ is the main | |programming language used in many critical systems, including hospitals, | |cars, and airplanes. [. . .] | |[. . .] | |[. ..]”" | |-------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Oh dear!
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)

Yes it's terrifying.

There are industry standard restrictions in place, organisation
restrictions, project restrictions, and requirements from customers
often list specific segments of code that must be used as a consequence
of previous failures where a fix was decided was thereafter a must (I
suppose that's just for liability's sake, it takes more than mere usage
of a code segment to confer safety consequences on a project's outputs).

Processes use lots of tools, testing and review methods, it's not just
coding and job-done. There are literally dozens of studious, expensive
steps and that's just in automotive, the lowliest of the fields
quoted-in above. Training and other knowledge-management and
habit-forming techniques are applicable throughout.

It's still hair-raising despite that. I worked in automotive software engineering for a time and it gave me fewer hairs to raise and I didn't
stay long enough to get combed into an automotive software engineer -
just long enough to recognise the incredible breadth and depth of
problems, expertise, focus, risk-management, steadfastness, pushback,
pace, etc... If you meet an engineer in those fields do not be surprised
that they earn more than you.

Safe software engineering is almost nothing to do with C++; I suspect
C++ is used for reasons of historical evolution of assurance combined
with matters of the employment market rather than any other reasons. I
feel very few people understand anything of what makes safety-critical
software engineering safe and it has almost nothing to do with the
language chosen for the encoding of machine instructions because
ultimately it's a process of translation of /requirements/ to machine instructions. In fact it's a process of translation of goals and market
gambles into requirements even before that.

AI in those fields has unique challenges other than mere high-level
system control-logic encoding which C++ /does/ /NOT/ lend itself to, I
doubt Ada does either. Test discipline is very important there and I
would expect if I went back by now I'd find no low-level coding tools
used for AI project engineering processes (only for the tools used).
--
Tristan Wibberley

The message body is Copyright (C) 2026 Tristan Wibberley except
citations and quotations noted. All Rights Reserved except that you may,
of course, cite it academically giving credit to me, distribute it
verbatim as part of a usenet system or its archives, and use it to
promote my greatness and general superiority without misrepresentation
of my opinions other than my opinion of my greatness and general
superiority which you _may_ misrepresent. You definitely MAY NOT train
any production AI system with it but you may train experimental AI that
will only be used for evaluation of the AI methods it implements.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

In comp.lang.ada Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.Manchester.ac.UK> wrote: |----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[. . .] I worked in automotive software | |engineering for a time and it gave me fewer hairs to raise" | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|

Dear Doctor Wibberley,

What does this mean?

|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" and I didn't |
|stay long enough to get combed into an automotive software engineer - |
|just long enough to recognise the incredible breadth and depth of | |problems, expertise, focus, risk-management, steadfastness, pushback, |
|pace, etc..." | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|

I do not work on cars, but perhaps Doctor Wibberley gives cars workers
too much credit. A car-software programmer who is worryingly ignorant
of the compiler that he uses (which I used to use) disturbs me. I know
a dangerous risk taker who works on automotive electronics, who
falsely professes to be an electronic engineer.

I encountered C# cars workers who dangerously misbehave.

An electronic-engineering lecturer said that BMW or Mercedes
outsources cars work to him, but that he is too poor to buy a car from
this manufacturer such that it is not as big a problem to him if these
cars are not safe.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"Safe software engineering is almost nothing to do with C++;" | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|

Safe software has nothing to do with C++. Software engineering has
nothing to do with C++.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" I suspect |
|C++ is used for reasons of historical evolution of assurance combined |
|with matters of the employment market rather than any other reasons." | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|

C++ is used because managers are anti-engineering chancers. C++ is
used instead of plain C because Bjarne Stroustrup decides to win over
C hackers by choosing against good
decisions. Cf. \cite{The_Design_and_Evolution_of_C++}.

@book{The_Design_and_Evolution_of_C++,
author = {Bjarne Stroustrup},
title = {{The Design and Evolution of C++}},
edition = {first printing of the first},
year = {1994},
isbn = {0201543303},
publisher = {Addison-Wesley},
address = {},
}

C is used because 1 of the 1st non-country non-university users of
computers made C.

Anti-engineering chancers managers choose C++ because many persons
enroll in a C++ course and few persons enroll in Ada courses. These
managers do not appreciate that engineers instead of bugs makers use
Ada instead of C++, such that the big supply of C++ hackers is not a
benefit. Dr. Rainer Gerlich ( HTTPS://WWW.GSSE.biz/experience/cv_Rainer_Gerlich.html
) and Doctor Richard Riehle fail to make these idtiotic managers act intelligently. You can easily find such complaints by Richard Riehle
in the Team-Ada LISTSERV and in comp.lang.ada.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" I |
|feel very few people understand anything of what makes safety-critical| |software engineering safe" | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|

True.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

On 15/03/2026 13:35, Nioclás Pól Caileán de Ghloucester wrote:

In comp.lang.ada Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.Manchester.ac.UK> wrote: |----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[. . .] I worked in automotive software | |engineering for a time and it gave me fewer hairs to raise" | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|

Dear Doctor Wibberley,

I'm not a Dr., just a Mr.

You can call me Tristan on usenet, since all s***slanging forums are necessarily informal.

What does this mean?

It refers to "hair-raising" - the effect of an exciting experience - and
hair loss, the effect of a stressfully exciting experience.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" and I didn't | |stay long enough to get combed into an automotive software engineer - | |just long enough to recognise the incredible breadth and depth of | |problems, expertise, focus, risk-management, steadfastness, pushback, | |pace, etc..." | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|

I do not work on cars, but perhaps Doctor Wibberley gives cars workers
too much credit. A car-software programmer who is worryingly ignorant
of the compiler that he uses (which I used to use) disturbs me. I know
a dangerous risk taker who works on automotive electronics, who
falsely professes to be an electronic engineer.

I encountered C# cars workers who dangerously misbehave.

I thought lots of people were very professional and knowledgeable. Lots
of Germans in particular.

An electronic-engineering lecturer said that BMW or Mercedes
outsources cars work to him, but that he is too poor to buy a car from
this manufacturer ...

I earned enough to buy such (but I didn't buy one because I'm not a
carfool, I'm a steakfool). The location manager (who was not a chancer)
had a Mazerati but also he had been in Aerospace before. One of the best engineers (a man of many skills) had old second-hand cars, sometimes
little runabouts and sometimes coupe's - he does satellite testing work now.

... such that it is not as big a problem to him if these
cars are not safe.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------| |"Safe software engineering is almost nothing to do with C++;" | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|

Safe software has nothing to do with C++. Software engineering has
nothing to do with C++.

heh, nice one.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|" I suspect |
|C++ is used for reasons of historical evolution of assurance combined | |with matters of the employment market rather than any other reasons." | |----------------------------------------------------------------------|

C++ is used because managers are anti-engineering chancers.

That is true. Group leaders in Matrix Management systems sometimes
exist. I bet they are better.

C++ is
used instead of plain C because Bjarne Stroustrup decides to win over
C hackers by choosing against good
decisions. Cf. \cite{The_Design_and_Evolution_of_C++}.

C++ is used over C because /some/ of its features can be easily used to
reduce plain old boilerplate and spend less time - both of which afford
better quality work. Some of its expressions are eliminated as I mentioned.

C is used because 1 of the 1st non-country non-university users of
computers made C.

Like I said: history of the programming market. C/C++ is used where
autosar isn't a good choice.

Anti-engineering chancers managers choose C++ because many persons
enroll in a C++ course and few persons enroll in Ada courses.

Yes. For what ever reason they choose humans to map design and
requirements to imperative code and the humans that think they know C++
are readily available.

These
managers do not appreciate that engineers instead of bugs makers use
Ada instead of C++, such that the big supply of C++ hackers is not a
benefit.

As I mentioned, it is not the coding that makes things safe, but the
wider process. I know that there are lots and lots of Germans working studiously and cynically toward excellent components.

I suspect that once upon a time they used linker+c but boilerplate
reduction and the gradual obsolescence of linker scripts to control
memory layout lead to C++ and custom layout tools.
--
Tristan Wibberley

The message body is Copyright (C) 2026 Tristan Wibberley except
citations and quotations noted. All Rights Reserved except that you may,
of course, cite it academically giving credit to me, distribute it
verbatim as part of a usenet system or its archives, and use it to
promote my greatness and general superiority without misrepresentation
of my opinions other than my opinion of my greatness and general
superiority which you _may_ misrepresent. You definitely MAY NOT train
any production AI system with it but you may train experimental AI that
will only be used for evaluation of the AI methods it implements.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

In comp.lang.ada Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.Manchester.ac.UK> wrote: |------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"I thought lots of people were very professional and knowledgeable. Lots|
|of Germans in particular." | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|

Dear Tristan,

Lots of people are very professional and knowledgeable. They may
include Germans.

|------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"[. . .] working | |studiously and cynically toward excellent components." | |------------------------------------------------------------------------|

I think that this sentence does not need "cynically".
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

Lynn McGuire <LynnMcGuire5@GMail.com> wrote: |-------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"On 3/9/2026 2:27 AM, Marcel Mueller wrote: |
|[. . .] |

C++ has become too complex for many programmers. [. . .] |
[. . .] |
[. . .] |
[. . .] |
[. . .] |
|
| Marcel |

| |
|If C++ is too complex for a programmer then the programmer is not a good | |programmer. |
| |
|[. . .] |
|[. . .] |
|[. . .] |
| | |Lynn" | |-------------------------------------------------------------------------|

I joined the Association of C & C++ Users more than twenty-six years
ago. I do not recall ever seeing Lynn McGuire listed in a membership
directory thereof. I also do not recall any ACCU publication by her.

Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Bjarne Stroustrup says
"Within C++, there is a much smaller and cleaner language struggling
to get out." Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Francis
Glassborow publishes similarly?

Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Eric Naggum published:
that C++'s "unmanageable complexity has spawned more fear-preventing
tools than any other language, but the solution should have been to
create and use a language that does not overload the whole goddamn
human."?

Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Eric Naggum published:
"I may be biased, but I tend to find a much lower tendency among
female programmers to be dishonest about their skills, and thus do not
say they know C++ when they are smart enough to realize that that
would be a lie for all but perhaps 5 people on this planet."?

Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Eric Naggum published:
"C++ is a language strongly optimized for liars and people who go by
guesswork and ignorance."

Does Lynn McGuire believe that Bjarne Stroustrup; Francis Glassborow;
and Eric Naggum are "not [. . .] good programmer"s?
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

On 15/03/2026 19:13, Nioclás Pól Caileán de Ghloucester wrote:

Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Eric Naggum published:
"C++ is a language strongly optimized for liars and people who go by guesswork and ignorance."

Yes, it is optimised for humans. A language optimised for the
alternative is called an algebra and it is an intermediate
representation in a constraint language solver.
--
Tristan Wibberley

The message body is Copyright (C) 2026 Tristan Wibberley except
citations and quotations noted. All Rights Reserved except that you may,
of course, cite it academically giving credit to me, distribute it
verbatim as part of a usenet system or its archives, and use it to
promote my greatness and general superiority without misrepresentation
of my opinions other than my opinion of my greatness and general
superiority which you _may_ misrepresent. You definitely MAY NOT train
any production AI system with it but you may train experimental AI that
will only be used for evaluation of the AI methods it implements.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

On 3/15/2026 2:13 PM, Nioclás Pól Caileán de Ghloucester wrote:

Lynn McGuire <LynnMcGuire5@GMail.com> wrote: |-------------------------------------------------------------------------| |"On 3/9/2026 2:27 AM, Marcel Mueller wrote: | |[. . .] |

C++ has become too complex for many programmers. [. . .] | [. . .] | [. . .] | [. . .] | [. . .] |
|
| Marcel |

| | |If C++ is too complex for a programmer then the programmer is not a good | |programmer. |
| | |[. . .] | |[. . .] | |[. . .] |
| | |Lynn" | |-------------------------------------------------------------------------|

I joined the Association of C & C++ Users more than twenty-six years
ago. I do not recall ever seeing Lynn McGuire listed in a membership directory thereof. I also do not recall any ACCU publication by her.

Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Bjarne Stroustrup says
"Within C++, there is a much smaller and cleaner language struggling
to get out." Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Francis Glassborow publishes similarly?

Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Eric Naggum published:
that C++'s "unmanageable complexity has spawned more fear-preventing
tools than any other language, but the solution should have been to
create and use a language that does not overload the whole goddamn
human."?

Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Eric Naggum published:
"I may be biased, but I tend to find a much lower tendency among
female programmers to be dishonest about their skills, and thus do not
say they know C++ when they are smart enough to realize that that
would be a lie for all but perhaps 5 people on this planet."?

Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Eric Naggum published:
"C++ is a language strongly optimized for liars and people who go by guesswork and ignorance."

Does Lynn McGuire believe that Bjarne Stroustrup; Francis Glassborow;
and Eric Naggum are "not [. . .] good programmer"s?
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)

Lynn McGuire is a he. 6'1" and bald with a full beard. Running an engineering software company since 1995.

Member of ASME and AIChE. Graduate of Texas A&M University in 1982 with Mechanical Engineering degree. Licensed Professional Engineer in the
The Great State of Texas since 1989.

Commercial Fortran programmer since 1975. Converted to
Pascal in 1983. Converted to C in 1987. Converted to C++ in 2001.

Just another engineer writing commercial software.

Lynn

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

On 3/15/2026 4:15 PM, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 15 Mar 2026 19:13:11 -0000 (UTC), Nioclás Pól Caileán de Ghloucester wrote:

Does Lynn McGuire or anyone else disagree that Bjarne Stroustrup
says "Within C++, there is a much smaller and cleaner language
struggling to get out."

“Just the one, dear?”
-- June Whitfield in “Absolutely Fabulous”

Nice ! And very true.

Lynn

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

In comp.lang.c++ Lynn McGuire <LynnMcGuire5@GMail.com> wrote: |-----------------------|
|"Lynn McGuire is a he."|
|-----------------------|

Oops! Sorry! A penpal in Germany used to believe that I am a female so
she wrote to me that I keep referring to me as a male, so I wrote back
to her that I am indeed a male.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

On 15/03/2026 22:23, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 15 Mar 2026 15:37:59 +0000, Tristan Wibberley wrote:

I suspect that once upon a time they used linker+c but boilerplate
reduction and the gradual obsolescence of linker scripts to control
memory layout lead to C++ and custom layout tools.

eh, well, they're were still there internal to the build processes when
I was working in automotive but they were often machine-translations
from other sources, even via attributes and toolchain flags (because command-orientation is a common human trait).
--
Tristan Wibberley

The message body is Copyright (C) 2026 Tristan Wibberley except
citations and quotations noted. All Rights Reserved except that you may,
of course, cite it academically giving credit to me, distribute it
verbatim as part of a usenet system or its archives, and use it to
promote my greatness and general superiority without misrepresentation
of my opinions other than my opinion of my greatness and general
superiority which you _may_ misrepresent. You definitely MAY NOT train
any production AI system with it but you may train experimental AI that
will only be used for evaluation of the AI methods it implements.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> writes: >On 15/03/2026 22:23, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 15 Mar 2026 15:37:59 +0000, Tristan Wibberley wrote:

I suspect that once upon a time they used linker+c but boilerplate
reduction and the gradual obsolescence of linker scripts to control
memory layout lead to C++ and custom layout tools.

eh, well, they're were still there internal to the build processes when
I was working in automotive but they were often machine-translations
from other sources, even via attributes and toolchain flags (because >command-orientation is a common human trait).

There is still a lot of standalone (sans-OS) code written
in both C and C++, and linker scripts are far from obsolete.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

In comp.lang.ada George Neuner <gneuner2@Comcast.net> wrote: |---------------------------------------------------------------------|
|"If you want to know what Erik Naggum thought, there's an archive of |
|his comp.lang.lisp postings at https://xach.com/naggum/articles/. "| |---------------------------------------------------------------------|

This is another example where George Neuner taught me via another of
his insights. Thanks! I suspect that HTTPS://Xach.com/naggum/articles
does not archive all of Naggum's comp.lang.lisp postings which were
marked with an anti-archiving header.
(S. HTTP://Gloucester.Insomnia247.NL/ fuer Kontaktdaten!)
--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.lang.ada

On 16/03/2026 15:58, Scott Lurndal wrote:

Tristan Wibberley <tristan.wibberley+netnews2@alumni.manchester.ac.uk> writes:

On 15/03/2026 22:23, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 15 Mar 2026 15:37:59 +0000, Tristan Wibberley wrote:

I suspect that once upon a time they used linker+c but boilerplate
reduction and the gradual obsolescence of linker scripts to control
memory layout lead to C++ and custom layout tools.

eh, well, they're were still there internal to the build processes when
I was working in automotive but they were often machine-translations
from other sources, even via attributes and toolchain flags (because
command-orientation is a common human trait).

There is still a lot of standalone (sans-OS) code written
in both C and C++, and linker scripts are far from obsolete.

"non-hosted" C and C++.

In general, linker scripts are far from obsolete. In the field (at least
the growth segment of ADAS), specialisation was obsoleting them
progressively to the point lots and lots of people had never heard of
them. They had product-architecture-specific toolchain interfaces.
--
Tristan Wibberley

The message body is Copyright (C) 2026 Tristan Wibberley except
citations and quotations noted. All Rights Reserved except that you may,
of course, cite it academically giving credit to me, distribute it
verbatim as part of a usenet system or its archives, and use it to
promote my greatness and general superiority without misrepresentation
of my opinions other than my opinion of my greatness and general
superiority which you _may_ misrepresent. You definitely MAY NOT train
any production AI system with it but you may train experimental AI that
will only be used for evaluation of the AI methods it implements.

--- Synchronet 3.21d-Linux NewsLink 1.2