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From: phil@abccam.abcl.co.uk (Phillip Yelland)
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.eiffel
Subject: Re: Reference Semantics (sic!)
Message-ID: <851@tech.abccam.abcl.co.uk>
Date: 21 Jun 91 15:55:03 GMT
Organization: Active Book Company Limited, Cambridge, UK
Lines: 26

I'd like to thank those who followed up my recent article with such cogent
and reasoned responses.

I'm especially grateful to Kent Beck for receiving my rather back-handed
compliment in such good humour. In mitigation, I'd like to emphasize that I
was attempting to make a constructive point (which I believe has also been
expressed by Kai Henningsen and others); I know that Kent is a very skilled
Smalltalk programmer, and it's evident from his reply that he adopts an
approach to design which will bar many of the problems which aliasing might
produce. By analogy with structured programming and the use of GOTO: could
it be that there is a collection such strategies meet to deal with the
majority of sharing requirements? Would it be worth expressing these devices
explicitly in a object-oriented programming language, so as to promote
disciplined engineering amongst the rest of us?

--Phil

P.S. To those people who expressed an interest in publications: I'll try to
mail you a (latex) copy of a recent paper electronically from another site,
(though I'm afraid I can't guarantee 100% success, and may need to pursue
matters at greater length). I've also had a word with the great panjandrums,
and my thesis should be available in due course as a technical report from
the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory (Library), New Museums Site,
Pembroke St., Cambridge, Cambs. U.K. If you feel you can't possibly wait
that long for the real McCoy, prod me again, and I'll be off to the Post
Office to get some cost estimates. Thanks again.