Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!bbn!apple!claris!peirce
From: peirce@claris.com (Michael Peirce)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components
Subject: Re: Abstraction vs. optimization?
Message-ID: <10277@claris.com>
Date: 14 Jun 89 18:23:29 GMT
References: <7037@cbmvax.UUCP> <5667@hubcap.clemson.edu> <51097@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <5479@rpi.edu>
Reply-To: peirce@claris.com (Michael Peirce)
Organization: Claris Corporation, Santa Clara CA
Lines: 40

In article <5479@rpi.edu> adamsf@cs.rpi.edu (Frank Adams) writes:
>In article <51097@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Bruce Weide <weide@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>>If there is to be a "reusable components" cottage industry, probably
>>many components will only be available as specifications plus runnable
>>code in object form.
>
>I suspect that software components in object form will never be successful.
>There is too much need to diddle with things, too little which can be used
>as is.  And inheritance with run-time binding is too often an inadequate
>method of diddling.
>
>Frank Adams   adamsf@cs.rpi.edu

Never is a long time, but I agree that for the immediate future this will
probably be true.  I'm currently using MacApp, basically a class library
for implementing Macintosh programs in Object Pascal.  There a number of 
"components" within MacApp
that I can simply use based on their spec, but often I need to look
inside at the source code to figure out various things (debugging based
on specs only isn't pretty).  Of course, at some time, MacApp might be
advanced enough and stable enough to not require source to really use make
it work, but that will require quite some time.


An aside.  Why all this bickering between the OOPs people (mainly C++ folks) 
and the Ada folks?  I used Ada at my previous job and OOPs now and I think
they're both great.  Both sides could learn something from the other rather
than simply taking pot shots.  Sure Ada, C++, Object Pascal, even SmallTalk
have their short comings (lots and lots!), but they all do have their good
points too.

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