[nana77]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Some places teach a programming language. A few places teach how to program.

Your "interview" is pretty poor satire. Most of the flaws in C++ in 1987 when I was learning it were despite Stroustrup, because they were caused by AT&T's demand for backward compatibility. This resulted in supposed C++ programs that were really C programs with classes, because the code monkeys had learned programming languages and had never learned to program.

The worst 3rd level students I had for PC applications or programming had "done" it at school. The best hadn't had any exposure, so hadn't learned nonsense.

Thanks, the link wasn't correct, for the full interview's page..
I'd found it interesting, leastways.

Interviewer: Well, it’s been a few years since you changed the world of software design, how does it feel, looking back?
Stroustrup: Actually, I was thinking about those days, just before you arrived. Do you remember? Everyone was writing ‘C’ and, the trouble was, they were pretty damn good at it.. Universities got pretty good at teaching it, too. They were turning out competent - I stress the word ‘competent’ - graduates at a phenomenal rate. That’s what caused the problem..
Interviewer: Problem?
Stroustrup: Yes, problem. Remember when everyone wrote Cobol?
Interviewer: Of course, I did too
Stroustrup: Well, in the beginning, these guys were like demi-gods. Their salaries were high, and they were treated like royalty..
Interviewer: Those were the days, eh?
Stroustrup: Right. So what happened? IBM got sick of it, and invested millions in training programmers, till they were a dime a dozen..
Interviewer: That’s why I got out. Salaries dropped within a year, to the point where being a journalist actually paid better..
Stroustrup: Exactly. Well, the same happened with ‘C’ programmers..
Interviewer: I see, but what’s the point?
Stroustrup: Well, one day, when I was sitting in my office, I thought of this little scheme, which would redress the balance a little. I thought ‘I wonder what would happen, if there were a language so complicated, so difficult to learn, that nobody would ever be able to swamp the market with programmers? Actually, I got some of the ideas from X10, you know, X windows. That was such a bitch of a graphics system, that it only just ran on those Sun 3/60 things.. They had all the ingredients for what I wanted. A really ridiculously complex syntax, obscure functions, and pseudo-OO structure. Even now, nobody writes raw X-windows code. Motif is the only way to go if you want to retain your sanity..
Interviewer: You’re kidding…?
Stroustrup: Not a bit of it. In fact, there was another problem.. Unix was written in ‘C’, which meant that any ‘C’ programmer could very easily become a systems programmer. Remember what a mainframe systems programmer used to earn?
Interviewer: You bet I do, that’s what I used to do..
Stroustrup: OK, so this new language had to divorce itself from Unix, by hiding all the system calls that bound the two together so nicely. This would enable guys who only knew about DOS to earn a decent living too..
[...]

LOL

Interviewer: I don’t believe you said that….
Stroustrup: Well, it’s been long enough, now, and I believe most people have figured out for themselves that C++ is a waste of time but, I must say, it’s taken them a lot longer than I thought it would..