I had been desirous of exploring this topic since 2017; however, as I have mentioned previously, whenever, I try to start work on certain topics that do not suit the rhetoric being promulgated by the American and Western communities at large, some external force completely eliminates my desire, vocabular set, and complete knowledge on that subject matter. Finally, after starting and failing, restarting and failing again, and multiple such cycles, I have finally managed to write a cogent, coherent defense of my stance on the matter that programming languages, including C++, are rather easy to master for average to above average people. Intelligent to extremely intelligent people find them extremely easy.
This article has not been checked for grammatical and typographical accuracy.
Since 2017, I have been trying to write a complete rebuttal of Bjarne Stroustrup’s argument that programming languages are quite difficult, and C++ especially is quite difficult; however, whenever I had previously tried to start work on this topic, some outside force completely stalled my cerebrum and eliminated the ability to weave even marginally acceptable few paragraphs on this topic. Finally, after struggling to weave even a marginally acceptable rebuttal, I have been able to write a few paragraphs after sending letters to multiple engineers in Pakistan including Dr. Irfan Ullah Chaudary.
When it comes to individuals’ performances against the clock, Terence Tao and I belong in an entirely different league; however, even if FAST—NUCES inductees’ performances were to be compared against the performance of people like Dr. Irfan Ullah Chaudary who completed his BS, MS, and PhD in electrical engineering at MIT, the members of the truly intelligent community would be left verily stunned to the see the standard of the enrollees’ performances in subjects like Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry. People with around 660 or 665 without any extracurriculars tend to have around 62–64 percentage points in Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry subject group, and starting from 1988 to 1996, an absolute majority of FAST—NUCES enrollees at Lahore and Karachi branches had either close to 670 or fewer, and most of them had fewer than 670 marks. Compare them with the data sheets of top quartet of the electrical engineering department at UET or GIKI and the Pakistani engineers who have found spots at MIT, Harvard, or Stanford rigth after finishing college, and the performances of enrollees of FAST—NUCES would prove nothing short of extremely poor in the aforementioned subject group.
Despite being extremely weak in the aforementioned subject group comprising of Mathematics (mother of all sciences), Physics, and Chemistry, some of these individuals who were not even willing to study Mathematics, and Physics went on to become expert C++ programmers within a span of 5 years including the 3 years manadtory study at FAST which included the whole of the subject workload including Mathematics and Physics. Had programming languages legitimately been difficult, how exactly would have these people who never had the ability to learn Mathematics and Physics well managed to become such expert C, C++, Java, and assembly language programmers within a span of 5 years, and then system architects within 8 to 10 years, as well.
These individuals’ remarkably poor ability to comprehend Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry would leave any intelligent person verily stunned, yet most of them now claim mastery in multiple programming languages and describe themselves as seasoned architects with expert level knowledge of large scale systems. As all of this about them is correct when it comes to computing affairs along with their profound weakness in the aforementioned subject group, hence, it raises the critical question that how spectacularly easy are programming languages?
Bjarne Stroustrup’s Chicanery
Fallacious Argument Rests On Perfidious Rearrangement Of Academic Material
Despite the inherent ease of the subject matter involved, of course, the programming languages, the whole of the fallacious argument constructed by Bjarne Stroustrup rests on academic subjterfuge. To present his argument to the novices that programming languages pose a significant challenge to the learners, he has engaged in perfidious rearrangement of academic matter. In his books written for even the novices or first semester computer science or electrical engineering students, he has, to prove his point, brought forward an example that requires almost in depth knowledge of Compiler Constructions course, the assignment that requires the novice to develop a complete calculator by first learning how to parse the grammar required to calculate even the most intricate of numerical equations no matter how deepely nested the numerical parts of the equation may be within the brackets. The course of Compiler Constructions is offered in the last semester of the Computer Science or Computer Engineering degree at almost all of the engineering institutions regardless of the level of prestige enjoyed by the institution.
To pass the course of Compiler Construction, the students have to take the following mandatory courses first, as without the knowledge of the techniques discussed in the following courses, studying compiler construction can become a nightmarish experience for any ordinary competent student. Students first have to pass with at least good grades the courses of Data Structures, Theory of Automata where no programming is discussed and the whole of the course work revolves around comprehending how to deal with various types of grammars, generally, students are also encouraged to pass the course of Discrete Mathematics, as well. Once the students have mastered the techniques discussed in these courses, only then they are expected to find the Compiler Construction course only moderately easy. Compiler Construction is the only difficult course in the whole of the 4 years degree program offered at FAST—NUCES or even UET in the Software Engineering degree program. All of the other courses only qualify as almost spectacularly easy from the point of view of an extremely talented or intelligent student.
By presenting to the students of first semester an example that should be discussed either at the end of the Theory Of Automate Course or after first month of Compiler Construction course, professor Bjarne Stroustrup puts the novices in a position where they probably almost always fail to even comprehend the example, let alone present a convincing and correct solution. By causing such a major failure of comprehension on the part of the novices with an immense rearrangement of text, professor Bjarne Stroustrup not only manages to instill this feeling in the novices that programming inherently is an extremely difficult subject, he also manages to leave them extremely embarrassed, as well.
What professor Bjarne Stroustrup has done while writing an introductory text on programming languages and how to program in C++ can be replicated in the field of linguistics, as well, which is deemed by almost all intelligent humans as the lowest hanging fruit in the whole of the academic world.
If I had to convince a 5th grader that English language, by its very nature, is an extremely complicated or difficult to master subject, then I could engage in the following outrageously deceptive rearrangement of the academic matter to leave the 5th grader absolutely stunned and verily bamboozled as to how difficult it can become when writing excellent dialogues. I have taken the following lines from the movie titled V for Vendetta. If I were to present the following lines to a 5th grader and ask that 5th grader to write a compelling critique of the dialogue or at least try to write as regaling and mesmerizing a dialogue within a span of a day, the young child would probably give up on learning the English language, the easiest subject of all subject matters available to the mankind.
After reading the aforementioned, a 5th grader would not only fail to comprehend approximately 85 percent of the words used the whole of the monologue, he might as well start thinking about becoming a baker, carpenter, or a truck driver.
Almost all of the FAST—NUCES extremely average enrollees who worked diligently and tirelessly during the 3 years degree program that was on offer starting from 1992 till the end of 1997 and managed to develop almost profound interest in computing affairs were also able to manage close to 90 percentage points in the Compiler Constructions course, and professor Bjarne Stroustrup’s whole of the argument rests on presenting an exercise to the novices that requires at least very good understanding of Theory of Automata. As an individual who spent 3 years at FAST largely roaming the corridors, the only subject that I found involved some level of difficulty was the Compiler Constructions course, for the rest are extremely easy. By rearranging the English Language’s course in a similar manner and introducing 5th graders to the V For Vendetta dialogue that I have included a couple of paragraphs above, a teacher could make a 5th or 6th grader think about his or her options and leaving the world of academia behind to become a baker, carpenter, or driver, for the challenge posed by that complete monologue would almost scare even a bright 5th or 6th grader.
That was probably professor Bjarne Stroustrup’s only option to convince the new comers that the field chosen by him and the language designed by him — truth be told, C++ largely remains a replica of Simula 67 with curly brackets replacing “start” and “end” keywords — pose a significant learning challenge and involve inherit complexity that most would find extremely difficult to master. In essence, programming languages are extremely easy to master when compared with subjects like Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, and having thought about it incessantly, as some outside force was completely blocking my ability to weave this defence, I have only been able to place programming languages only slightly above the difficulty level posed by Biology as a subject matter. Performances of extremely average enrollees of FAST—NUECS in the programming and large scale system desgin prove my point beyond a shadow of doubt. These people working for Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, and Google are not only expert programmers with the ability to program in multiple programming languages, they, if given a chance, would be able to desigen a new programming language, as well.
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