Title: Editorial

Let me start by thanking everybody who has written to me since the last C Vu, whether it was to offer compliments (many of which rightly belonged to Francis) or to offer constructive criticism. It is a credit to the membership of the ACCU that constructive criticism was the only form of criticism I received; not a single correspondent was anything other than polite and professional in their approach, whatever they had to say. These first few issues are a time of learning for me, but then in the field in which we work (or play, for those of you who view computing as "only" a hobby) we should always be learning. For me, at least, part of the appeal of working with technology is knowing that I'll never run out of new things to learn about.

A fine place to learn interesting things is the ACCU conference. I was going to write about it at some length in this editorial, but instead I will refer you to Alan Griffiths' report (see "From the Chair") and to Francis Glassborow's column. Even if you can only get there for a day, you won't regret taking the time. Aside from the conference program itself, it's a great chance to meet other ACCU members - and it really is much easier to interact with people remotely once you've talked with them over a coffee, or over something stronger. Some of the conversations might even be about programming. If you are at the conference then please do approach the various committee members if you have any ideas of what you would like to see happening within ACCU; all of the initiatives which make ACCU what it is come from the membership.

Next, I have a confession to make. It's a variation on a game a development team once played, called "CTO speak." You take two concepts, combine the two, and call it a new idea. On this occasion, however, the combination is so obvious that I'm embarrassed that it took me so long to make it.

One of the problems facing C++ is an image problem. (I am referring to the image of C++ itself, not to the image problem of C++ programmers!) C++ is widely advertised as being old, complicated, and hard to learn. Beyond changing the words and saying that C++ is mature, powerful and challenging, there is more that could be done. C++ doesn't benefit from the marketing efforts of any large companies; it will not compete with the image-intensive approaches taken by Java or C#. (To offset against that, it gains independence from any one company, and for many of us that's a powerful attraction.)

When a developer approaches a new language, the nature place to look for information about it at the start of the 21st century is on the web. Certainly we can emphasise that in order to learn a language properly you'll need books and, in most cases, help from more experienced users, but first impressions are likely to be from hearsay and from the web. If people want to know about C# online they'll go to Microsoft's websites, for Java they'd soon go to Sun's websites. For C++ there's no authoritative place on the web to go for information about the language. There are useful sites, to be sure; the FAQ for comp.lang.c++ is a hefty and generally good document, and numerous people maintain web sites with selected pieces of FAQ-like information (Jack Klein and Greg Comeau spring to mind as two sources of reliable technical information on the web). To date, however, I have not found a website set up to help people to learn how to use C++ from scratch - at least not one which covers C++ either correctly or in a modern style. In the past I have considered doing something about this myself, but the level of work involved is non-trivial, and I like to sleep on a semi-regular basis.

So that's the first idea: C++ needs a place on the web that tells people how to get started with C++ in detail, and does it right. A place which can be trusted, and which will become more popular over time.

Now if you're reading C Vu - and if you're not, where on earth are you reading this? - you'll possibly see the second concept which comes into play here. We need some person or group of people who might have an interest in C++, the ability to assemble quality information about it and host a website, and a willingness to donate some time and effort to enriching the community. I've just described a large part of the ACCU. The book reviews section of the ACCU's website already carries our name far and wide, and is peerless in the world of C and C++ in particular. I believe that we can do the same for online C++ tutorials, and more than that I believe that we should do so. No other group is so well suited to the task.

If you're thinking that this might be your chance to make a difference, drop me a line, or strike up a conversation on accu-general. Doing this well could be a fascinating project, and I would welcome the involvement of people from diverse backgrounds, including those who consider themselves novices. There's no point having this all written by those of us who can't even remember what it was like learning the basics of C++, and as usual the best results and the most fun will come from bringing our different experiences together.