Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!microsoft!jimad
From: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: OOL Comparison (was Re: What is Objective C?)
Keywords: C++, Objective C
Message-ID: <57185@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 5 Sep 90 17:22:30 GMT
References: <3864@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> <4998@pegasus.ATT.COM> <11233@alice.UUCP> <56975@microsoft.UUCP> <6@ftms.UUCP>
Reply-To: jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK)
Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA
Lines: 33

In article <6@ftms.UUCP> lalonde@ftms.UUCP (John LaLonde) writes:
|In article <56975@microsoft.UUCP> jimad@microsoft.UUCP (Jim ADCOCK) writes:
|>One way to try to put comparisons of OOPLs into perspective is to try
|>to measure how much interest there is in each language.  I've been tracking
|>such interest by noting how many references to the various languages
|>appears each month in the Computer Library database.  The database is ...
|>
|>C++		2044
|>Smalltalk	 869
|>Objective-C	 228
|>Eiffel	  48
|
|This "comparison" of interest in OOLs can be misleading. Are you implying
|that this type of perspective indicates something more than interest? My
|objection is to the implication that level of interest indicates worthiness
|(i.e. since more people are interested in it then it must be better). Since you
|are a major advocate for C++ (based on the number of articles posted) perhaps
|there is more to your comment than just numbers. 

Lots of things can be misleading -- trying to correlate the words of posted
praise for a particular OOP language to the actual usability of that language
-- for example.  The numbers posted above are only one more way of comparing
languages.  What's the "right" way to compare languages, and which language
is "best" ??? -- Only an individual user can decide that for themselves.
The history of marketing would indicate that a wide variety of products can
coexist, meeting the particular needs of individual consumers.  Should we
then expect that there is a universally "correct" answer for "What is the
best language?"?

To put the above OOPL numbers in broader perspective, "C" has about 10X more 
references than "C++", but C++ [and most other OOPLs] are still growing rapidly,
while "C" coverage is remaining stagnant.  Personally, I find these kind of
simple studies helpful in keeping OOP, and OOPLs in perspective.