My impression was and is that many programming languages and tools represent solutions looking for problems, and I was determined that my work should not fall into that category. Thus, I follow the literature on programming languages and the debates about programming languages primarily looking for ideas for solutions to problems my colleagues and I have encountered in real applications. Other programming languages constitute a mountain of ideas and inspiration-but it has to be mined carefully to avoid featurism and inconsistencies.

With the increasing importance of standards for system-level objects such as COM and CORBA, it is particularly important that the C++ bindings to those be clean, well documented, and simple to use.

Defining OO as based on the use of class hierarchies and virtual functions is also practical in that it provides some guidance as to where OO is likely to be successful.

Anybody who comes to you and says he has a perfect language is either naive or a salesman.

The most important single aspect of software development is to be clear about what you are trying to build.

There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone.

Always think about how a piece of code should be used: good interfaces are the essence of good code. You can hide all kinds of clever and dirty code behind a good interface if you really need such code.