Bjarne Stroustrup: “I Did It for You All [Your Salaries] ”
harmful.cat-v.org
harmful.cat-v.org
The “leaked” Stroustrup interview was just a bit of inventive fiction that satirized a number of topics familiar to programmers, but the parody hit so close to home that many readers did (and still do) mistake it as genuine. The faux interview gained such widespread currency, in fact, that it prompted Computer to conduct a real interview with Dr. Stroustrup, which it published in its June 1998 issue prefaced with the following statement:
In Design and Evolution of C++, Bjarne Stroustrup argued that “a programming language is really a very tiny part of the world, and as such, it ought not be taken too seriously. Keep a sense of proportion and most importantly keep a sense of humor. Among major programming languages, C++ is the richest source of puns and jokes. That is no accident.”
For the past few months, a hoax interview between Stroustrup and Computer has been making the rounds in cyberspace. While we regret the incident, it offers us a welcome opportunity to have the father of C++ share his insights on Standard C++ and software development in general. We can also attest to his continued sense of proportion and humor — he suggests that the fictitious interview would have been a much funnier parody had he written it himself.