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The Most Important C++ People...Ever

36 replies. Most recent reply: May 17, 2009 8:31 PM by Sean Corfield

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Bill Venners

Posts: 2284
Nickname: bv
Registered: Jan, 2002

The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 30, 2006 11:30 AM

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In this article, Scott Meyers shares his picks for the five most important people in the history of C++, along with why he chose them.

http://www.artima.com/cppsource/top_cpp_people.html

What do you think of Scott's choices? Who else do you feel has been important in the history of C++, and why?

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 30, 2006 12:10 PM

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Posted by: Christopher Diggins Posts: 1215 / Nickname: cdiggins / Registered: Feb, 2004

> In this article, Scott Meyers shares his picks for the
> five most important people in the history of C++, along
> with why he chose them.
>
> http://www.artima.com/cppsource/top_cpp_people.html
>
> What do you think of Scott's choices? Who else do you feel
> has been important in the history of C++, and why?

I'd have dropped Scott and added Stepanov.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 30, 2006 6:40 PM

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Posted by: Bob Dobalina Posts: 16 / Nickname: hiredgoon / Registered: Apr, 2005

I agree - Alexander Stepanov wrote the STL, that's more significant than someone who explained or championed it (however well)

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 3:22 PM

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Posted by: Todd Blanchard Posts: 316 / Nickname: tblanchard / Registered: May, 2003

Scott absolutely belongs on that list. Probably at position 2.

For the longest time I began every phone screen for C++ talent with "Who is Scott Meyers?". Failure to correctly answer would get you 10 more minutes of pleasant talk and a "thank you for your time".

I learned the language from the ARM, Scott's first book, and the fish streams book. The STL, which came several years afterward, I learned online.

I still routinely see violations of Scott's 50 items in recently written production code and it gives me the willies everytime.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 1, 2006 4:58 PM

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Posted by: Jeff Ratcliff Posts: 242 / Nickname: jr1 / Registered: Feb, 2006

> For the longest time I began every phone screen for C++
> talent with "Who is Scott Meyers?". Failure to correctly
> answer would get you 10 more minutes of pleasant talk and
> a "thank you for your time".

Well, that sounds like a good strategy for eliminating applicants, but not a very good one for selecting competent C++ programmers. Certainly with the hundreds of books and other resources available to learn and master C++, being unfamiliar with the work of any one author shouldn't be a fatal flaw.

> I still routinely see violations of Scott's 50 items in
> recently written production code and it gives me the
> willies everytime.

I'm not a big fan of these rule lists. Individuals usually have a rather narrow range of experience to draw from and so they may not realize there are environments unfamiliar to them where the rules are "wrong".

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 5, 2006 11:17 AM

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Posted by: Todd Blanchard Posts: 316 / Nickname: tblanchard / Registered: May, 2003

> > For the longest time I began every phone screen for C++
> > talent with "Who is Scott Meyers?".
>
> Well, that sounds like a good strategy for eliminating
> applicants, but not a very good one for selecting
> competent C++ programmers.

With 100 resumes for a given job - that's the idea.

> > I still routinely see violations of Scott's 50 items in
> > recently written production code and it gives me the
> > willies everytime.
>
> I'm not a big fan of these rule lists.

Well I am. It is astonishing how many so-called C++ programmers see no problem subclassing a class with a non-trivial non-virtual dtor. That's just one example.

The fact is, that the vast majority of people who code in C++ aren't really qualified to do it. And I'm tired of working with those people - so I don't do it anymore.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 5, 2006 12:08 PM

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Posted by: Jeff Ratcliff Posts: 242 / Nickname: jr1 / Registered: Feb, 2006

> With 100 resumes for a given job - that's the idea.

Of course you can use any method you choose. My point is that you may be eliminating some very competent people. If you think the book is important why not ask candidates questions based on the content rather than assuming they can't know the answers unless they've read the book?

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 5, 2006 1:35 PM

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Posted by: Todd Blanchard Posts: 316 / Nickname: tblanchard / Registered: May, 2003

>If you think the book is important why not ask candidates questions based on the content

I was being (slightly) flip.

Still, the book was a major milestone and remains important today for C++ developers.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 5, 2006 12:34 PM

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Posted by: Terje Slettebø Posts: 205 / Nickname: tslettebo / Registered: Jun, 2004

> Well I am. It is astonishing how many so-called C++
> programmers see no problem subclassing a class with a
> non-trivial non-virtual dtor.

Would it matter if that non-trivial non-virtual constructor was protected...?

> The fact is, that the vast majority of people who code in
> C++ aren't really qualified to do it. And I'm tired of
> working with those people - so I don't do it anymore.

I certainly understand that sentiment. The the thing I'm wondering, then, is: Are you able to find as good people as you want, for positions?

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 5, 2006 12:52 PM

Reply

Posted by: Roland Pibinger Posts: 93 / Nickname: rp123 / Registered: Jan, 2006

> It is astonishing how many so-called C++
> programmers see no problem subclassing a class with a
> non-trivial non-virtual dtor. That's just one example.

You mean like
struct input_iterator_tag {};
struct forward_iterator_tag: public input_iterator_tag {};

> The fact is, that the vast majority of people who code in
> C++ aren't really qualified to do it.

Blame C++, not the people.

> And I'm tired of
> working with those people - so I don't do it anymore.

So you are not working with C++ anymore?

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 5, 2006 1:32 PM

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Posted by: Todd Blanchard Posts: 316 / Nickname: tblanchard / Registered: May, 2003

> Blame C++, not the people.

Oh I do, but we have this legacy code that needs maintaining, see. Frankly, the project would have been better done in Erlang.

> So you are not working with C++ anymore?

It is a language for a madman and overly labor intensive besides. I now personally only code in dynamic languages. All current web development for personal work is done in Squeak/Seaside (web) or Objective C (desktop app). If I need speed, I use bits of C.

To quote Tom Cargill: "what is a protected abstract virtual base pure virtual private destructor and when was the last time you needed one?" pretty well sums it up. I think he has abandoned the language as untenable as well (focused on Java now).

As for work - I manage developers - I no longer code in it. I interview hundreds of candidate developers for several languages every year - in my experience most of the C++ candidates are dangerous. My personal skill level was Grade A for C++ circa 1997. It is a little out of date now I think - but I don't see any compelling reason to use it outside of maybe device drivers (and then I'd just use C).

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 30, 2006 10:37 PM

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Posted by: Siddhartha Singh Posts: 2 / Nickname: sisingh / Registered: Aug, 2006

I somehow agree and disagree : Stepanov and Scott are at same point I think :)
:)
Siddhartha

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 12:36 AM

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Posted by: Parveen Kaler Posts: 1 / Nickname: pkaler / Registered: Aug, 2006

In addition to Stepanov, how about David Abrahams and PJ Plauger. And you can't forget the forefathers of C (Kernighan, Ritchie, etc).

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 2:00 AM

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Posted by: Roland Pibinger Posts: 93 / Nickname: rp123 / Registered: Jan, 2006

In second place behind Stroustrup I'd put The Humble Programmer. He has kept C++ alive for so long despite its numerous deficits.

BTW, after so much self-adulation why not continue the series with "The Most Important C++ Failures...Ever". Candidates are (among others):
- Standard compliance of compilers
- binary compatibility
- module support (lack of)
- 'C++ will absorb C'
- multi-paradigm induced complexity
- templates
- MFC
- STL
- BOOST
- ...

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 1, 2006 4:15 AM

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Posted by: Terje Slettebø Posts: 205 / Nickname: tslettebo / Registered: Jun, 2004

> In second place behind Stroustrup I'd put The Humble
> Programmer. He has kept C++ alive for so long despite its
> numerous deficits.
>
> BTW, after so much self-adulation why not continue the
> series with "The Most Important C++ Failures...Ever".
> Candidates are (among others):
> - Standard compliance of compilers
> - binary compatibility
> - module support (lack of)
> - 'C++ will absorb C'
> - multi-paradigm induced complexity
> - templates
> - MFC
> - STL
> - BOOST
> - ...

Are you just trolling, or would you care to come with some justification of why you call the above "failures"?

I'm particularly interested in the part about the multi-paradigm design of C++, templates, STL, and Boost, which I think are all important contributions of C++ (or to C++), and to the field of computing.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 2, 2006 1:41 AM

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Posted by: Roland Pibinger Posts: 93 / Nickname: rp123 / Registered: Jan, 2006

> Are you just trolling, or would you care to come with some
> justification of why you call the above "failures"?

The list contains 'heavyweights' that had some impact on C++ but also failed in critical aspects (while succeeding in others). I'd expect one of the most important C++ people ever to also discuss those failed aspects.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 5, 2006 12:29 PM

Reply

Posted by: Terje Slettebø Posts: 205 / Nickname: tslettebo / Registered: Jun, 2004

> > Are you just trolling, or would you care to come with
> some
> > justification of why you call the above "failures"?

> > I'm particularly interested in the part about the
> > multi-paradigm design of C++, templates, STL, and
> > Boost, which I think are all important contributions of
> > C++ (or to C++), and to the field of computing.

> The list contains 'heavyweights' that had some impact on
> C++ but also failed in critical aspects (while succeeding
> in others). I'd expect one of the most important C++
> people ever to also discuss those failed aspects.

A feature having problematic aspects doesn't in itself make the feature as a whole failed. What I reacted to was that much of the list is considered successes in the community.

For a more productive discussion, maybe you could list some of those "failed aspects", then we can discuss them here?

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 2:13 AM

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Posted by: Achilleas Margaritis Posts: 674 / Nickname: achilleas / Registered: Feb, 2005

What is the point of all these 'most important' articles?

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 4:09 AM

Reply

Posted by: Roland Pibinger Posts: 93 / Nickname: rp123 / Registered: Jan, 2006

> What is the point of all these 'most important' articles?

Sounds like a farewell.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 11:52 AM

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Posted by: Bill Venners Posts: 2284 / Nickname: bv / Registered: Jan, 2002

> What is the point of all these 'most important' articles?
>
They are light reading that I felt would be good conversation starters and community builders. I always ask in the forums what other X (books/pubs/software/people, etc.) do you think was significant in the history of C++. And each time people have chimed in with a few such suggestions.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 5:47 AM

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Posted by: Ravi Venkataraman Posts: 80 / Nickname: raviv / Registered: Sep, 2004

It is generally accepted practice that when making lists of the "Best 5 ...." types, one excludes oneself. In scientific, peer reviewed papers, even those written by single authors, the pronoun "I" is conspicuous by its absence; the phrase "the author(s)" or "we" is used instead.

I prefer a bit of humility. That is what distinguishes the truly great from the wannabees. The truly great can afford to be humble and modest because their greatness will shine through nevertheless.

I am not a C++ programmer. Its complexity turned me off long ago. Nevertheless, given Scott Meyers's self-adulatory posts, I'll make sure not to read any more articles by Scott Meyers in any field of software development.

By the way, I do not feel that writing books on C++, or being on the language specification committee, etc. qualifies one for greatness in said field.

Alex Stepanov's work on STL definitely should have been mentioned. Its absence shows that the author is not being objective.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 7:19 AM

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Posted by: nes Posts: 137 / Nickname: nn / Registered: Jul, 2004

Guys, be easy on Scott. Whenever you include yourself in a list like that it will sound pretentious, that is why it is customary for the author to exclude himself. Scott broke the tradition and time will tell if that was a wise thing to do.

Because I am in the mood I will follow with some anecdotes to show how Bjarne and Andrew still impact the programming world today:

A friend of mine had to do a presentation during his time as a software engineering student a couple of years ago. He was doing a comparison of C++ and Eiffel. He sent out a mail to Bjarne asking about the rationale for the existence of some of the visibility qualifiers. He got an articulated answer back. My friend was able to present the topic with the backing of an authority in the field.

Although Andrew Koenig is better known for his C and C++ works, he is no stranger to the Python world and not shy to start a stir. Look at the summary of http://www.python.org/dev/summary/2002-08-16-2002-09-01/ under the type categories title. I met him at Pycon a couple of years ago and he was a very approachable guy, listening and giving his opinion on what people were doing.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 2:23 PM

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Posted by: Abe Taha Posts: 1 / Nickname: abetaha / Registered: Aug, 2006

I have to agree a bit of humility is good. Even if Meyers thinks he's one of the most important C++ people ever, he could have shown some humility and picked another name from Stroustrup's list instead.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 7:09 AM

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Posted by: Christopher Dearlove Posts: 2 / Nickname: dearlove / Registered: Aug, 2006

I tried an experiment and fed Scott's list (both names needed) into http://labs.google.com/sets - here are the other names it came up with on its long list.

Nicolai M Josuttis
Stanley B Lippman
Martin Fowler
James O Coplien
Bruce Eckel
Douglas C Schmidt
PJ Plauger
Angelika Langer
Ira Pohl
Gurus Genitor
Cay Horstmann
Jim Coplien
W Richard Stevens
Erich Gamma
Krzysztof Czarnecki
Grady Booch
Brian W Kernighan
Kent Beck
Richard Monson Haefel
Nell B Dale

Make of that what you will. (I don't recognise all of them, and one I haven't heard of in a C++, or OO, context - but in another very much so, and maybe it's just me. That's not counting the OO, not necessarily C++, people. And there are clear omissions. But don't blame me for that.)

I'm with the people who think Stepanov should have been on the list (although if talking about publicity, Matt Austern is who popularised it to me). But there's also a second author of the STL isn't there, Meng Lee? Some credit there, even if not on this list?

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 12:06 PM

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Posted by: Bjarne Stroustrup Posts: 60 / Nickname: bjarne / Registered: Oct, 2003

Picking *the* top people is very difficult and very personal. Spefifying which criteria to use to select "top people"
is already hard. For example, contributions to:
the language definition
popularization
contribution of libraries
compiler writing
building significant applications
academic papers
development of new software develoment techniques
tool building
What else?

To show the difficulty, here is a list of people that at various times over the last 25 years have been indispensible
and/or left significant traces in C++ and/or simply been highly visible in the C++ community. The order is alphabetical:

Dave Abrahams - formulated the exception guarantees, library provider, Boost co-founder, template metaprogramming guru, author
Andrei Alexandrescu - author
Matt Austern - STL implementor, library WG chair, author
Tom Cargill - early C++ user, critic, and author (exception safety problems, language size problems)
John Carolan - first C++ business (not counting AT&T), porter and speaker
Marshall Cline - C++ FAQ
Jim Coplien - early adventurous user, popularized the notion of idiom (frm which "Pattern" borrowed a fair bit), author
Steve Clamage - early C++ compiler, C++ standards committee chairman, Sun representative
Hans-Jurgen Boehm - (C and) C++ garbage collectors - C++ concurrency and memory model work
Beman Dawes - Boost founder, rare user point-of-view in standards committee
Bruce Eckel - early C++ author, conference organizer
Eric Gamma (and the rest of the gang of 4) - design patterns, early GUI, C++ banking software
Francis Glassborow - ACCU founder, edition, and reviewer. UK committee member/delegate for a decade or so
Kevlin Henney - author, inventor and/or popularisor of many technniques
Michi Henning - CORBA book, ICE
Andrew Koenig - author, C++ project editor, contributor to many language features, manipulators
Doug Lea - CORBA binding
Stan Lippman - author, editor of "The C++ Report"
Dmitri Lenkov - founded the ANSI C++ committee
Doug McIlroy - Bell Labs' most influential "critic" of early C++, languages and systems guru
Nathaen Myer - traits
Scott Meyers - author
Kristen Nygaard - inventor of Simula and OOP/OOD, many discussions on aims and means of programming
PJ Plauger - defender of the C-view of C++, library vendor
Tom Plum - defender of the C-view of C++, conformance suite
Martin O'Riorden - early Cfront porter, first Microsoft C++ comiler, very Microsoft and Ireland representative
Dough Schmidt - ACE, TAU, CORBA book
Jerry Schwartz - iostreams (the original stream were mine), years on the standards committee
Jonathan Shopiro - first C++ standards project editor, writer of many early libraries, CORBA C++ binding
Alex Stepanov - the STL
Herb Sutter - author, columnist, designer of C++/CLI, ISO convener
Mike Tiemann - Cygnus founder, first author of GNU C++, wrote GPL-lite to allow use of C++ libraries
Todd Veldhuizen - template metaprogramming, expression templates, proved C++ template instantiation Turing complete, MTL

Obviously, the (sub)lists of contributions are absurdly short.

Many people in the standards committee contributed one or a few ideas, yet are not listed
Many people in Bell Labs who helped with suggestions or saved C++ from getting strangled in the crib, yet are not listed
Note that I know people who have spent 25 years doing little but C++ and still isn't on the list.
I know people who have spent months every year for the last 15 who is still not on the list.
It is really hard to come up with objective criteria.

There are huge tracts of the C++ community that I don't know well enough to pick names. Consider:

Apple
Borland
Banking
CGAL
EDG
IBM
QT
Rogue Wave
Microsoft
ROOT
...

Consider also national communities:

China
France
Germany
Japan
Scandinavia
UK
...

Suggestions welcome. I mean it:
which people did I miss?
which people shouldn't have been in this unordered top-30-or-so?
what less-than-one-line "rationales" are inaccurate/unfair?

See also, B. Stroustrup: A History of C++: 1979-1991. Proc ACM History of Programming Languages conference (HOPL-II).
ACM Sigplan Notices. Vol 28 No 3, pp 271-298. March 1993. Also, History of Programming languages (editors T.J.Begin
and R.G.Gibson) Addison-Wesley, ISBN 1-201-89502-1. 1996. (A heavily reviewed paper). Link on publications page:
http://www.research.att/~bs/papers.html .

More people to consider

John Barton
Dag Bruck
Walter Bright
Steve Dewhurst
Gabriel Dos Reis
Sean Corfield
Alexander Fraser
Doug Gregor
Tony Hansen
Howard Hinnant
Roland Hartinger
Jaakko Jarvi
Brian Kernighan
John Lakos
Barbara Moo
Dave Musser
Lee Nackmann
Sean Parent
Dennis Ritchie
Jerimy Siek
David Vandervoorde

Now, *many* could reasonably object to not being mentioned here or not to be on the other list.
If you feel overlooked or feel I overlooked someone else, please email me.

A "Who's Who in C++" would be useful.

-- Bjarne Stroustrup; http://www.research.att.com/~bs

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Aug 31, 2006 5:05 PM

Reply

Posted by: Ravi Venkataraman Posts: 80 / Nickname: raviv / Registered: Sep, 2004

Re Bjarne Stroustrup's list, did anybody notice that the most important C++ person's name is missing from the list?

Now that is the humility of the truly great that I was referring to earlier.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 4, 2006 8:49 AM

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Posted by: Nemanja Trifunovic Posts: 172 / Nickname: ntrif / Registered: Jun, 2004

I think the the most important reason for success of C++ is the brain power behind it - the number of smart, knowledgable and entusiastic people within C++ community is truly amazing.

Therefore, maybe this article should be about the 50 most important C++ people ever :)

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 1, 2006 7:35 AM

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Posted by: Marc Spencer Posts: 5 / Nickname: kohler / Registered: Sep, 2006

I found the following people missing from the list.

Krzysztof Czarnecki and Ulrich Eisenecker

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 1, 2006 8:05 AM

Reply

Posted by: Bjarne Stroustrup Posts: 60 / Nickname: bjarne / Registered: Oct, 2003

> I found the following people missing from the list.
>
> Krzysztof Czarnecki and Ulrich Eisenecker

Thanks

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 4, 2006 7:49 PM

Reply

Posted by: Greg Colvin Posts: 9 / Nickname: gregc / Registered: Jun, 2004

The most important woman missing from all of these lists is Josée Lajoie.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: May 17, 2009 8:31 PM

Reply

Posted by: Sean Corfield Posts: 1 / Nickname: sacorfield / Registered: May, 2009

> The most important woman missing from all of these lists
> is Josée Lajoie.

A friend recently pointed me to this thread (I've been away from C++ for about ten years now). I was flattered to see my name on Bjarne's list and Josée was the immediate exception that sprang to my mind. Josée chaired one of the core language groups and was instrumental in getting a level of clarity in the C++ standard that has benefited everyone since.

So many people contributed that any lists are always going to omit important contributors. It was a pleasure working with so many fine minds and being able to point back to an impressive achievement and be proud of having worked on it.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 1, 2006 2:54 PM

Reply

Posted by: Roland Pibinger Posts: 93 / Nickname: rp123 / Registered: Jan, 2006

One could add some magazine columnists (Pete Becker, ...) some heavy and high-quality newsgroup posters (James Kanze, ...) and some C++ book authors. But no matter how many people you add there will always be someone missing.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Dec 8, 2006 4:01 PM

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Posted by: Lance Diduck Posts: 1 / Nickname: enkidu / Registered: Dec, 2006

I think the Who's Who is a better idea -- the vast majority of C++ contributors do not have the time nor inclination to be excellent technical writers, which seems to be the main criteria for the article's choices. Dr. Stroustrup's list was a little more rounded, and the idea of a Who's Who is probably more tenable than a C++ A-list.
What seems to be off of all the lists mentioned are the numerous project managers, architects, engineers, developers, corporations, students and teachers who continue to invest in C++. The fact is that many of these users, because they are challenged by real world systems that must pay their real world bills, have made significant contributions. They have put their money where their mouth is. They just aren't as good at marketing themselves as the few who pontificate about C++.
As someone who works with hundreds of C++ developers, I can attest that very few actually work through books and articles -- they learn C++ by downloading compilers and libraries, their managers insisting that they learn C++, take already working programs and learning to modify them, all the while plying the local C++ guru with tons of questions. If they had to start with a blank makefile, and a shelf full of C++ books on the latest C++ innovations, and a manager not sure of the benefit of the language, they would get nowhere.

C++ is a great achievement, and my favorite language. But these lists missed a LOT of people, who just don’t keep the same social circles:
Ira Forman – C++ metaobjects and integration with SOM
Don Box, Richard Grimes: authors on C++/COM integration
(above authors VERY important in understanding paths toward a C++ “ABI”)
Angelika Langer – finally explained streams and locales
Matthew Wilson -- STLSoft and author
Michael Markov, Thomas Becker, Thomas Keffer – C++ numerics, financial analysis

Numerous unknown writers of commercial and open source libraries, such as MFC, ATL, Apache, and such.

Perhaps a Notable Achievements List is more fitting than a C++ Society Register?

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Nov 9, 2007 8:19 AM

Reply

Posted by: Miles Whitener Posts: 5 / Nickname: mwhitener / Registered: Nov, 2007

Greg Comeau

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Sep 6, 2006 2:41 PM

Reply

Posted by: Glenn Puchtel Posts: 5 / Nickname: gpuchtel / Registered: Aug, 2006

Given a language, any language, natural and computer alike, one can write obfuscated text. To cite an obscure construct as evidence against using a language somehow seems petty; however, it’s interesting to witness the passion. Since this article is about people, it’s understandable that the passion is somewhat more personal.

I have never met Scott, but I’ve read his books and one would be hard-pressed to find a more humble author and I suspect, person as well. If I ever wrote another book, I’d certainly try to imitate Scott’s style and voice. I’m puzzled that omitting oneself somehow constitutes humility however. Furthermore, it seems forgotten (or at least unmentioned) that Scott spoke to this very point at the beginning of the series.

I find this series enlightening and accept it at face value; light and entertaining material, I learned something too. I am especially appreciative that Bjarne took time to post his thoughts and list as well, which is extensive to say the least. It’s especially interesting to get insight who Bjarne thinks the pioneers of C++ are. It would be interesting to hear opinions from those pioneers as well.

Looking at Bjarne’s list, I can’t help but reflect on my military background where for every person I’ve seen recognized, (on a list so-to-speak) there were countless unknown or unsung heroes, but that is not the point of the article is it? Then again, one would be correct in pointing out that this only my opinion and probably one of passion as well.

Thanks Scott (et al) for contributing, sharing your opinion and providing a forum to share ours, even at the risk of ridicule.

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: May 6, 2007 3:06 PM

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Posted by: Hector Santos Posts: 6 / Nickname: hector / Registered: May, 2007

I know its 5 months later - but I just joined this "BBS."

My important C++ "people and things" is who must influenced my development over the years, as well as for thousands, if not millions of other developers:

- Borland with their IDEs, ok, Microsoft too with its early "Programmers Workshop"

- Turbo Power with its C++ Libraries for DOS

- Of course, K&R

- Bruce Eckel, with C++ Inside & Out

- Charles Petzoid, but I believe he was mostly C, if that counts, and I still carry a chip for him stealing and porting my Pascal DOS TREE display utility to ASM. I did get the $50 prize from PCMAG though. :-)

- and a few other book authors on C++, hell, even "The C++ for Dummies" give me a few subtle pointers.

- All the early Online support forums and newsgroups; the CompuServes, the Prodigies, the newsgroups, etcs, where you can get answers and also be part of fielding questions and helping others. There were many characters in the C/C++ programming fora, such as DR. DEBUG, probably one of most recognized "Programming Support" people around on the early Fidonet Networks (predating the public Internet) for a time when getting answers was not as easy as doing a GOOGLE search and getting thousands of hits from around the world.

IMO, as far as people, this is probably best left for the people in the "book and print" trade to recognize themselves. Ask the average joe smoe developer and he can mostly likely only cite 3-4 people and things that help him.

I know it was a day late, but probably the better title for this article would of been "The most important C++ people who influence me." That was pretty much what Scott was expressing, in my opinion.

Ciao

Re: The Most Important C++ People...Ever

Posted: Oct 28, 2008 6:36 AM

Reply

Posted by: Louw Badenhorst Posts: 1 / Nickname: louw / Registered: Oct, 2008

name the 5 most important writers of the english language ever (go ask harold bloom)
name the 5 greatest physicists ever
name the 5 most stunning actors
or chess players
or boxers (when ali told us we all listened)
or composers
or the 5 most important C++ people EVER, etc. etc.

so why should anyone care? why is this so important?

regarding C++ and scott meyers' article and the 5 most important c++ people EVER: if the point of all this
(or such a list) is to learn more about the invention of the c++ language, about who and what shaped it
and to learn more about the language itself, its history and evolution/revolution or the different techniques
that make powerful programmers, why exclude inventors (such as Stepanov), people who did shape the language
and whose contribution was more than a popularized or educational copy of others and without whose contribution
c++ would not have been the language it is today?

Louw Badenhorst

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