专访C++之父Bjarne Stroustrup

专访C++之父Bjarne Stroustrup

采访：虫 虫，翻译：ALNG

C++ View：C++的ANSI/ISO标准化标志着C++的成熟。能告诉我们在标准化过程中，您感到最难忘、最快乐以及最遗憾的事分别是什么吗？
The ANSI/ISO standardization of C++ indicates that the C++ language has matured. Would you please tell us the most unforgettable, the happiest and the most regrettable things you felt in the course of standardization?

Bjarne Stroustrup：标准化是一个极其有价值的重要活动，它在很大程度上被低估，困难重重。通过标准化，C++变得更好了，还获得了有着惊人表达力的标准库。编译器提供商总是想锁定用户，正式的标准化则是用户拥有的为数不多的防御手段之一。
Standardization is an extremely valuable, most important, largely underestimated, and most frustrating activity. C++ became a better language through standardization and acquired a standard library of surprising expressive power. Formal standardization is one of the few defenses that a user has against the interests of compiler suppliers, who always try to lock in their users.

很难挑出特定的事。委员会的大多数工作形式上都是发现、提练、建立信任的过程，要花时间。不过最重要的事一定是1990年对以The C++ Programming Language第二版（其中引入了模板和异常机制）作为参考手册来标准化C++的初次投票或1998年批准ISO标准的最终表决，两者之一。
It/'s hard to pick out specific events. Most of the work in the committee has the form of a process of discovery, refinement, and building of trust. Such things take time. However, the single most important event must be either the initial 1990 vote to standardize C++ based on the reference manual of the 2nd edition of "The C++ Programming Language" (that is, with templates and exception handling) or the final 1998 vote ratifying the ISO standard. In between those events, the vote to accept the STL as part of the standard library standard stands out as a most happy event.

没有任何负面或遗憾的事可以与这些积极的投票相提并论。所谓“遗憾”的事，要么是细微的技术细节，要么是（暂时）分化了委员会而使进一步的进展更加困难的讨论。我本来是反对C风格的cast，也不想引入仅允许整型的静态常量成员在类中初始化的机制。不过这些只是无关大局的细节。【注：cast翻译成什么好呢？其本意是铸造、打型，诸位以为，“映射”、“转换”、“型铸”哪一个翻译更贴切呢？或者有其他更好的翻译？】
There is no negative/regrettable event of a magnitude to match these positive votes. All "regrettable things" are either very minor technical details or discussions that (temporarily) polarized the committee so as to make further progress harder. I would have liked to deprecate C-style casts and not to introduce in-class initialization of static const members of integral types (only), but these are minor details.

我期待着另外一次重要表决。明年某个时间委员会将决定ISO C++的未来方向，这可是头等大事啊！
I am looking ahead to yet another key vote. Sometime over the next year, the committee will decide on the future directions for ISO C++. That will be an event of the first magnitude.