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From: carroll@cis.udel.edu (Mark Carroll)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.objective-c
Subject: Re: Objective C vs C++
Keywords: why
Message-ID: <44957@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Date: 18 Feb 91 18:38:26 GMT
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In article <60377@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> summers@acsu.buffalo.edu (Michael Summers) writes:
>Why would I want to use Objective C ? Can any one give me a
>short description of the pros and cons of the two
>languages?
>
>There is a lot of support for C++ in terms of PD software
>and vendors but hardly any for Objective C. Perhaps this
>will change when the new g++ come out. This lack of broad
>support is a definite limitation to Objective C whatever its
>attributes. What is so superior about Objective C that would
>induce me to abandon this support?
>

Contrasting Objective-C and C++ in this way doesn't make sense. Obj-C
and C++ are designed for very different purposes. The languages should
not be competing.

C++ is a systems language. It's very low level, very fast, etc. It's 
optimized towards very low level programming. It's not very good
at abstraction. It's completely impossible to implement a class in
a way where a user cannot change the private parts of the class, or
alter the class declaration. C++ is almost completely statically bound;
dynamic binding only comes into play when you start using virtual
function, and only functions tagged virtual can be rewritten in your
subclasses.

Objective-C is an applications language. It's higher level than C++. It's
not quite as fast, but in exchange for the (minor) loss in speed, you gain
a much more dynamic language. All object method calls are dynamically
bound, unless specifically forced to be static. (Sort of the opposite of
C++. C++ is static unless forced dynamic; Obj-C is dynamic unless forced
static.) All member functions can be reimplemented in subclasses. Also, in
C++, it is possible to distribute object-code for classes, without the
corresponding source. You can present objects which the user can make
full use of, but cannot alter without implementing a subclass. The private
parts of one of these classes can NEVER be changed by their users.

In summary: Objective-C is NOT superiour to C++; C++ is NOT superior to 
Objective-C. They are different languages with completely different aims.

	<MC>

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