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From: johnson@m.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: Teaching an Object-Oriented Pro
Message-ID: <77500057@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 16 Sep 90 04:37:00 GMT
References: <90@<PCG>
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Nf-ID: #R:<PCG:90:m.cs.uiuc.edu:77500057:000:1145
Nf-From: m.cs.uiuc.edu!johnson    Sep 15 23:37:00 1990


Peter Grandi gives an impressive list of object-oriented languages.
There were several that I didn't know about.

However, I would like to quarrel with his characterization of Smalltalk.
C++ is by far the most popular object-oriented language for commercial
use in the U.S.   However, Smalltalk might very well be in second place.  
Eiffel or Objective-C might have second place, but not by much.  I know 
of quite a few companies building products in Smalltalk.

Also, ParcPlace Smalltalk is not expensive for universities because
of their site license.  The site license makes it quite reasonable
to teach classes with it.  On the other hand, it certainly is
expensive outside universities, though not as much as it used to be.

I like to use Smalltalk to teach object-oriented programming because
the class library makes a great set of examples.  The programming
environment makes programming fun, which always helps a class.  On the
other hand, lots of other o-o languages come with good class libraries
and a nice programming environment.  Unfortunately, C++ is not one of
them.

Ralph Johnson -- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign