Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM!wmb
From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: OOF
Message-ID: <9009061817.AA23759@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 6 Sep 90 17:29:43 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 28

> > So what will it be?  Shall we try to *select* an object oriented standard
> > as opposed to inventing one?  The existing ones are not all brain-damaged.
>
> To paraphrase:  So what will it be?  Do it now or do it right?  [ 1/2 :-) ]

The paraphrase is wrong.  I'm not suggesting "do it now", I'm suggesting
"it has already been done; let's try to build upon existing work rather than
starting from scratch".

How do we know that what we invent will be more "right" than one that
someone else has already invented, implemented, debugged, and which
has already passed the "real world usefulness test"?

Charles Duff and Phil Burk and Jim Callahan and Steve Lewis are not all
idiots, so their work should not be rejected out-of-hand as being "wrong".

There seems to be considerable disagreement on ForthNet about what is "right"
and what is "wrong".  My suspicion is that everybody who has an opinion is
of the opinion that anything "not invented here" is "wrong".

The smart businessperson carefully considers both sides of the "make or
buy" decision, rather than jumping immediately to the "make" decision.

Finally, I claim from personal experience that it is *extremely* difficult
to achieve a critical mass of market acceptance.  Starting with a ball
that is already rolling increases the chances of success immeasurably.

Mitch