Xref: utzoo comp.object:3613 comp.lang.c++:13710
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!bu.edu!transfer!lectroid!jjmhome!smds!rh
From: rh@smds.UUCP (Richard Harter)
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ and waitresses (summary, long)
Summary: One of us is missing the point
Message-ID: <484@smds.UUCP>
Date: 28 May 91 04:29:36 GMT
References: <2326@media03.UUCP> <1991May27.042830.674@odi.com>
Followup-To: comp.object
Organization: SMDS Inc., Concord, MA
Lines: 32

In article <1991May27.042830.674@odi.com>, dlw@odi.com (Dan Weinreb) writes:
> Sometimes there are two ways of doing something, and there are
> tradeoffs between them.  Is this uniquely American?  I haven't done
> any work overseas; perhaps I'm just provincial.  In your country, are
> all sorts always done with quicksort, never with insertion sorts or
> heapsorts?  Are all computer programs written in one language?  Do all
> (or none) programmers always use languages with (or without) lots of
> runtime checks?  It had never occurred to me before that there was
> something American about the concept of choosing between engineering
> alternatives based on tradeoffs.

One of us (at a minimum) is missing the point, which I  perceive as being
about defaults.  The, ah, object of the game is to minimize the making
of unnecessary decisions, thus reducing both the amount of code to be
written and the amount of intellectual labor.

Compare a frame (in AI jargon) versus a class.  When I instantiate an
object using a frame all attributes are filled in with default values.
If I set the value of a specific attribute, the default values of all
attributes dependent on the specified attribute are adjusted accordingly.
[Suitable disclaimers for various implementations are included here by
default.  :-)]

To take your example, in many applications it doesn't particularly
matter what kind of sort I use -- I just want my data sorted.  What
you have omitted in your discussion of tradeoffs are the costs of making
and implementing tradeoff decisions.  
-- 
Richard Harter, Software Maintenance and Development Systems, Inc.
Net address: jjmhome!smds!rh Phone: 508-369-7398 
US Mail: SMDS Inc., PO Box 555, Concord MA 01742
This sentence no verb.  This sentence short.  This signature done.