Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uupsi!cmcl2!acf5!sabbagh From: sabbagh@acf5.NYU.EDU (sabbagh) Newsgroups: comp.object Subject: Re: Documenting OO Systems Message-ID: <1576@acf5.NYU.EDU> Date: 5 Apr 91 16:16:12 GMT References: <20106@alice.att.com> <1991Mar26.191259.14470@i88.isc.com> <27F4D4BE.716@tct.uucp> <1991Apr2.175756.12586@visix.com> <1574@acf5.NYU.EDU> Organization: New York University Lines: 43 jls@rutabaga.Rational.COM (Jim Showalter) writes: >>Just goes to show you: hindsight is the *only* perfect science. Ada and C++ >>could not have been developed with first experiencing C and Algol. >Agreed. The difference between software and other disciplines, however, >is that in other disciplines obsolete tools and techniques are readily >discarded when something better comes along. By your own admission, >C and Algol are the equivalent of slide rules and the abacus. All I'm >trying to get people to do is dump them in favor of something better. >Stubbornly clinging to languages and techniques with proven deficiencies >makes as much sense as a hardware engineer refusing to use those darned >newfangled VLSI chips, a mechanical engineer refusing to use those >scary new CAD systems, a construction firm refusing to use poured concrete >in place of bricks and plaster, etc. I'm not sure I buy this argument. No tool is ever completely obsolete, not even the abacus. Millions of Chinese still use them in their daily life. It has certain advantages over electronic calculators. Tools have appropriate contexts. Fortran and C have an appropriate context. In the C case, there is an emerging concensus that C++ is superior to C. But there is really insufficient experience with C++ to say that this is a certainty. The other disciplines you mention are the result of *hundreds* even *thousands* of years of collective experience. Finally, I want to point out that the invention of C++, Eiffel and a number of other languages have pointed out the true value of C: as a replacement to assembly language! I predict that most future languages will compile to C instead to machine language. This is a tremendous achievement for the software community: true resuability of language and concepts. Hadil G. Sabbagh E-mail: sabbagh@cs.nyu.edu Voice: (212) 998-3125 Snail: Courant Institute of Math. Sci. 251 Mercer St. New York,NY 10012 "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr. Disclaimer: This is not a disclaimer.