“extern c: Talking to C Programmers about C++”
summary
The talk examines why many C projects and programmers resist adopting C++—particularly in embedded, automotive, and aerospace domains—and proposes communication strategies grounded in cognitive science, linguistics, and psychology to make C++ more persuasive to C programmers. It discusses the technical claim that C++ is largely compatible with C (migration ease, maintained performance, and benefits like catching unsafe conversions) and focuses on how to present those facts effectively to managers and developers who hold misconceptions about C++.
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chapters (40)
- 0:00Intro
- 0:24Getting Acquainted
- 1:51Languages for Embedded Software
- 6:52What's It to Me?
- 9:41A Cautionary Tale
- 10:31Devices as Structures
- 11:37Devices as Classes
- 12:31The Responses
- 13:22Measuring Instead of Speculating
- 15:47Results from One Compiler
- 17:46The Reader Response
- 19:30The C++ Community Response
- 19:57The Rumors of My Death...
- 26:28Voter Behavior
- 27:11People Behavior
- 28:39Science!
- 29:25What Science Tells Us
- 30:22Motivated Reasoning
- 30:37The Enlightenment Fallacy
- 31:35Cultural Cognition Worldviews
- 32:20Worldviews and Risk Assessment
- 34:08Motivated Numeracy
- 36:26Everyday Frames
- 37:18Language Choice and Political Framing
- 40:01memcpy Copies Arrays
- 40:27memcpy is Lax
- 40:44C's Compile-Time Checking is Weak
- 40:59An All-Too-Common C Mindset
- 42:13Replacing A Frame
- 42:39A Frame That Sometimes Works
- 43:43Persuasion Ethics
- 44:40Stronger Type Checking Avoids Bugs?
- 46:27Facts Can Backfire
- 47:32Frames Filter Facts
- 48:06Loss Aversion
- 49:53A Bar Too High?
- 54:42Concrete Suggestions
- 57:13Static Data Types
- 58:23Data Types Simplify Programming
- 58:59What's a Data Type?
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