
Scott Meyers: The Last Thing D Needs [video] - andralex
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/47947981
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nly
Great talk, and a satisfying introspective side to Meyers compared to his
usual "Meyers explains it all" talks and books (which frankly, have been
controversial in some respects in glossing over the "tool use" complexity to
enable readers/viewers to reach the "tool application" side of C++). That
said, you can never win... a couple of the C++ examples in this talk could
have used a few extra words of explanation and rationale, but he erred on the
side of not losing the audience, which is good.

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kolev
Nice and entertaining! I will definitely use this talk as an example of why
kids shouldn't start learning programming with C++ (just in the last couple of
months I had both my sister and a friend consider it for their kids).
Although, maybe those who survive will become outstanding developers.

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lmm
I gave this 10 minutes and there wasn't any content up to that point. Anyone
have a transcript of the actual meat?

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dmunoz
I watched the talk live. I'll throw this out there just to see if anyone
disagrees or has a different perspective.

It's basically Scott bashing C++ in his incredibly informed style. He shares
some of the parts of C++ that everybody hates: the gotchas. This is what he
has been doing for a few decades now with his Effective C++ series.

The conclusion was that the last thing D needs is someone like him. Someone to
explain D like he has had to in his Effective C++ series and talks. Some of
the crowd comments that D doesn't need this because it has less gotchas.

I admit to being let down by the talk mostly due to my expectations of what
this talk could be about. I was massively excited to see Scott give a
presentation about D. In the end, it was hardly about D.

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Munrek
Not at all ! The conclusion is D does not need him. If fact, D should not need
someone like him. C++ needs Scott because C++ is not consistant, and with this
talk he wanted to show us that if D makes the things the right way, we will
not need him.

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jasonlotito
I think that's what "the last Thing D needs" means. Not the final piece.
Rather, what people mean when they say "The last thing X needs is Y", they
mean that X does not need Y. I make mention of this because the GP comment
says the last thing D needs and you say "Not at all" and then go on to say
effectively that the last thing D needs is Scott.

So, a lot of confusion in terms of wording, I think.

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yongjik
It's one of those tricky phrases that throws off foreign speakers. Many
English learners would assume "the last thing X needs is Y" would mean
"eventually X will need Y".

