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From: smd@rehder.larc.nasa.gov (Steve Dahmen)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: OO Design with "C" - Do we still get benefits
Summary: OOD, C/OOD language tradeoffs
Message-ID: <1991Mar22.212448.21375@news.larc.nasa.gov>
Date: 22 Mar 91 21:24:48 GMT
Sender: news@news.larc.nasa.gov (USENET Network News)
Organization: NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton VA
Lines: 39

Would anyone here mind commenting on the use of object oriented 
analysis and design principles with the "C" language?

From my own limited, but growing, understanding of OOD, it seems the
concepts itself natually promote good programming practices resulting
in lower maintenance costs.  Our project seems to invite an OO
approach because of the data organization.
I considered using C++, but none of
the developers here are trained in it, we don't have decent manuals
for it, we'd rather not take out time to get a compiled compiler on
our machines, and chances are we won't want to pay for developers with C++
knowledge just to maintain the code. And ADA, well, that's a whole
nother ball of wax; yet I don't think Silicon Graphics has an ADA
compiler anyways.  In addition, we don't need to
implement some of the more object language-oriented  features such as
the real-time messages, etc.  And lastly, we intend to share this code
with other aerospace engineers, who undoubtedly will not speak C++ or
Ada.

SO, is there a tragic flaw in my assumption that the use of OOD in
analysis and design, but implementing the project in "C" will result
in "better" code than using the old functional decomposition methods?
Does anyone have any idea if such an implementation will cause the
application to run any slower than a functionally decomposed
implementation??

Lastly, might there be any SE papers out there connected with this
topic?

Thanks in advance for your insights,

Steve Dahmen
Vigyan Research Corp.

-- 
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Steve Dahmen, Systems Analyst                         (804) 864-4519 (W)
M/S 365,  NASA Langley Research Center                    
Hampton, Virginia  23665                        smd@rehder.larc.nasa.gov