Viral Memes

NYAH! I'm sorry about that entry! I hope you didn't read it. I'll replace it with this one instead. I think I'm infected with one of those viral memes that everyone keeps talking about. It hardly seems possible that a rational being could succumb to something as dumb as a social virus, but here's some of the troubling facts I have noticed in the past years since getting it.

I feel compelled to "seek help" for my problems. In doing so, I fear that instead of seeking help some part of me I'm not aware of is just trying to spread the meme, and I will unconsciously reject any help I get. That's the only explanation why I haven't found help yet, right? It's natural of us to seek help when there's something wrong with us that we can't fix alone, but that might also be a possible pathway for such a virus to spread.
My abilities and thought processes are considerably slower and more fault prone than they were before I came across this idea. As those familiar with any nasty virus, it will consume CPU cycles like there was no tomorrow. It will lock up the system, damage other programs, do anything pretty much to keep itself from being removed. One of the first signs of a computer virus is an unusual slowdown or peaking out of CPU/Modem/Disk speeds when there's nothing going on.
There seems to be no way to resolve this idea that's bothering me. Like the toolbar that wouldn't uninstall, I've been trying to get over this problem for years and years, but it just won't go away. Anytime I think I've killed it, it just respawns and starts working in the back of my head.

So that's why I hope you didn't read this entry before I quarantined it. I know I can go on and on about my sob story and how the whole world is doomed, but I'm afraid to do this because I'm worried other people will come to the same conclusion, and by that conclusion have a miserable time living their life, just the way I do. Other people have assured me that they have an understanding of their mortality that makes them immune to this meme, but it's still worrisome nevertheless. I try not to tell people about it, but sometimes it just builds up inside.

Built-in "wrapper" class functionality. I want to make objects that act like other objects, but incorporate new functions. This might seem obvious, but ask any C++ programmer how to make a derived class so that (derived = base) works, and you'll probably get a good page of code to hack in that functionality.
How about true hiding of data implementation? Just because a data member is marked "private" doesn't mean I can ignore the dependancies for it. If A depends on B and B depends on A, then you're doomed. However if A depends on the interface to B and B depends on the interface to A, you're fine. Unfortunately, C++ has no interfaces: all data must be accounted for by all dependancies. Couldn't you just have added a sizeof(this) to the beginning of every object?
Correspondingly, I would like to be able to add member functions to classes after the class has been defined. Why not? Sometimes I have to make a function that takes a pointer to the class as its first argument just because using Class::function when function is not defined in Class is "immoral" or something, and the compiler bitches at me.
No templates. Templates must die.
Could we please please have an Abstract Base Class that can actually be usable? This relates to the problems above, but what good is an ABC if you can never instantiate it?? I find myself writing generator functions like ABC* generate_ABC(int parameter) and asking the Heavens, "Why isn't this built into the language?"

Viral Memes

Journal started Feb 19, 2006