Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!apollo!vinoski
From: vinoski@apollo.HP.COM (Stephen Vinoski)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: asking an object for its type
Message-ID: <503efcc0.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 8 Mar 91 18:58:00 GMT
References: <1991Feb20.232710.7843@ithaca.uucp> <1485@acf5.NYU.EDU> <71037@microsoft.UUCP> <27D57565.2B22@tct.uucp> <1991Mar8.073356.25207@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Reply-To: vinoski@apollo.HP.COM (Stephen Vinoski)
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 40

In article <1991Mar8.073356.25207@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> craig@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Craig Hubley) writes:
>Such opposition appears to be political:  you don't want the language
>"hijacked" by "outsiders" by which you appear to mean people who aren't
>doing everything in C and liking it.  I can understand why you won't
>accept arguments like "it's done that way in Smalltalk", but ANSI is
>not supposed to accomodate C programmers, it is supposed to cut costly
>re-invention and re-education (of/in things that should be standardized
>but aren't) for all of US industry.  Prototyping in other OO languages
>and shipping in C++ is a fact of life.  So is the preference for "pure"
>over "hybrid" languages in education.  So is the desire for (and corporate
>commitment to) extend class hierachies without source access.  At least a
>lot of firms are planning to waste big money trying, if waste it is.
>
>Given all these facts, it is a mighty big $ argument for making the change.
>So I don't see how political (i.e. interest-group) arguments can do anything
>but sanctify the "move towards Smalltalk", as you put it.  There is a huge $
>payoff for doing so, or at least many companies believe there is, or they
>wouldn't be interested in object-oriented systems (or possibly C++) at all.

IMHO there are many, many more C programmers looking at C++ as a way to reduce
their development and maintenance costs than there are Smalltalk programmers
looking at C++ as a way to turn their protoypes into real products.  I'd be
really surprised if the popularity of C++ was due to large numbers of converted
Smalltalk programmers!  Since many programmers use C for reasons of efficiency
and program compactness, they will require the same from C++; costly OO features
(in terms of memory space and run time) will cause them to avoid C++.

I hope the evolution of C++ isn't controlled by $'s and politics, but if it is,
Smalltalk programmers will lose, simply because there are many more C
programmers using the language.


-steve



| Steve Vinoski  (508)256-0176 x5904       | Internet: vinoski@apollo.hp.com  |
| HP Apollo Division, Chelmsford, MA 01824 | UUCP: ...!apollo!vinoski         |
| "The price of knowledge is learning how little of it you yourself harbor."  |
|                                                    - Tom Christiansen       |