Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!lsr From: lsr@Apple.COM (Larry Rosenstein) Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: object-oriented this, that, and the other thing Message-ID: <5639@internal.Apple.COM> Date: 6 Dec 89 19:27:20 GMT References: <1471@aber-cs.UUCP> <914@castle.ed.ac.uk> <1561@novavax.UUCP> <352@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. Lines: 43 In article pcg@emerald.cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes: >unfortunately Smalltalk is not what most people know as an OO >language. The likes of Object Pascal, C++, Ada (argh!) are >associated in the public's mind with OO programming. This is sad but true. Although one must keep in mind that the use of the terms "most people" and "public" refer to the average computer user, and not people in CS departments, people who attend OOPSLA, etc. O-O languages were largely ignored in the popular computer press until Microsoft and Borland introduced versions of Object Pascal, and committed to supporting OOP in their environments. Since then there have been floods of articles about OOP in publications like InfoWorld, MacWorld, etc. At one would expect, a lot of these articles contain mis-information. For example in the Object Pascal competition between Microsoft and Borland, the press has portrayed Borland's language as "better" because they allow both virtual & non-virtual methods (a la C++). This is despite the fact that their language (in my opinion) is badly designed in places. On the bright side, this new interest in OOP leads to several funny articles and letter. In the June 19 InfoWorld is the following (shamelessly excerpted) letter to the editor. (As background, InfoWorld ran a series of aritcles about OOP, and this letter responds to one of them.) "First is concept of combining code and data into a single 'object.' Though I agree that this can simplify programming, the added overhead and duplication of code for each data object can vastly compound one of the most frustrating problems facing computer users today -- that of programs too big for available memory." [followed by a disussion of TSR's, "tight" coding, etc.] Of course, I'm being unfair to the writer of the article, because he later does make some valid points about discussing OOP separately from graphics interfaces. But it is humorous, nevertheless. -- Larry Rosenstein, Object Specialist Apple Computer, Inc. 20525 Mariani Ave, MS 46-B Cupertino, CA 95014 AppleLink:Rosenstein1 domain:lsr@Apple.COM UUCP:{sun,voder,nsc,decwrl}!apple!lsr