Xref: utzoo comp.sys.next:8390 comp.lang.c++:9852
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!lighthouse!rock
From: rock@lighthouse.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Mixing C++ with Objective-C (is dynamic binding needed?)
Message-ID: <1990Oct8.054934.797@lighthouse.com>
Date: 8 Oct 90 05:49:34 GMT
References: <13275@june.cs.washington.edu>
Organization: Lighthouse Design, Ltd.
Lines: 36
In-Reply-To: bnfb@cs.washington.edu's message of 6 Oct 90 23:37:44 GMT


In article <13275@june.cs.washington.edu> bnfb@cs.washington.edu
(Bjorn Freeman-Benson) writes:

>I was glancing through the latest NeXT documents when I saw that
>they have C++ as well as Objective-C available.  For the C++
>community, this raises the question of whether adding Objective-C
>would be a good idea for all C++ releases (to provide dynamic
>binding).  For the NeXT community, this raises the question of
>whether it is needed/useful.

Mostly for market reasons, the NeXT community benefits from the
addition of C++. It makes the machine attractive to more people.

While the flexibility of choice seems like a good thing to me, I don't
see any vastly compelling reasons for all C++ compiler makers to add
Objective-C support. 

It is interesting to note that the upcoming version of gcc is supposed
to compile both, just like the NeXT compiler.

>P.S. Another question I have is whether the same class can be used
>both as a C++ class and as an Objective-C class.

One of our engineers wrote a demo in which Objective-C methods sent
messages to C++ objects and vice versa. Such code looks perverse at
best, but it works just fine. 

BTW, I've heard a rumor that the internals of Improv are written in
C++.

Roger Rosner
Lighthouse Design
rock@lighthouse.com

No one would be foolish enough to take responsibility for my opinions.