Re: C++ standards committee looking at adding Cairo to the C++ standard

?? Tiib <ootiib@hot.ee> writes:


  I am giving classes in Java and C++. I try to stay focussed,
  on-topic in these classes. So I do teach what is part of the
  standard ISO C++ and standard Java SE / JDK.

  Teaching Java SE, I can teach how to write JavaDoc, because
  this is part of the standard JDK. C++ does not have a
  standard for documentation comments, although there is
  Doxygen. Contracts are essential for modern programming, and
  contracts of classes and functions are being described in
  the documentation. So it is good when a language supports this.

  Teaching Swing in Java is great as a motivation to learn
  Java and OOP in Java. People want to write GUI programs and
  they can see that they absolutely need to learn OOP to do
  this in Java. There are not licensing issues that I am aware of.

  In C++, I cannot teach GUIs because that would be off-topic
  in a C++ class. A GUI does not belong to the standard C++.
  Sometimes people try to teach OOP in C++ with ?class cow :
  public animal { public void sound(){ ::std::cout << "moe\n"
  ...?, but students are annoyed by such examples, possibly
  they feel to be treated like children, because the topic of
  animal sounds usually is treated in daycare facilities for
  children. And what's the point of a shape array with
  circles and rectangles, when one then cannot paint the shapes?

  I myself would not mind to teach C++ in a more abstract
  manner. But at least some students seem to like to see some
  GUI or graphics sometimes. If C++ would have gotten a
  standard interface for sockets, GUI, doc comments, XML, and
  all these things 10 years ago, it would be more important
  today. But instead, on TIOBE it dropped from rank 2 in 1994
  to rank 3 in 2009 and now to rank 4 in 2014 (in spite of the
  new 2011 standard!). This is sad, it is a wasted opportunity.