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From: gus@Shasta.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Coral Object Logo
Message-ID: <1341@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: Thu, 26-Feb-87 11:02:49 EST
Article-I.D.: Shasta.1341
Posted: Thu Feb 26 11:02:49 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 28-Feb-87 02:48:53 EST
References: <1725@PUCC.BITNET> <4794@mit-eddie.MIT.EDU> <690@bgsuvax.UUCP> <461@drexel.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 37
Summary: More thoughts on Object Logo

I bought Object logo at the MacWorld expo in SF earlier this year and I have
my own impressions of the language.

I had always heard that multiple inheritance was screwy. NOW I KNOW SO! The
Object Oriented Logo manual explains it fairly well. I would like to hear
from people who have programmed extensively with multiple inheritance and
get their thoughts as to whether and how it should be used. I can just see
so many strange things happening as the class graph becomes larger that I
find it hard to believe that this system is workable for anything but a
limited set of examples.

Logo shares a trait with FORTH, LISP, and SMALLTALK in that is almost
entirely vocabulary based. There are hundreds of LOGO words, and many of
them are not self explanatory. Each one has a large amount of semantics
behind it. This makes programs hard to read unless you are familiar with the
entire language. I much prefer languages which are more syntax based, where
some of the syntax of the language can help you along to format and
understand the code. Has anyone seen discussions about this topic?

When I sat down with Coral logo, I immediately saw the LISP-like engine that
was behind all of this. I expected it to behave somewhat like other LISPs
that I have worked with before. I found out, however, that one thing was
different - either Object Logo is entirely written in some lower level
language, or there is a non user accessible flag which prevents you from
seeing the definitions of some of the higher level LOGO words like you often
can in LISP. The only thing that you CAN see are the words you you put in,
or those that were in a system startup file. There are many - especially the
ones that handle windows, files, and streams - that I would like to look at,
especially to get a better Idea of how a read multiple inheritance class
hierarchy works.

Has anyone done some interesting programs - especially some that use
multiple inheritance - in Object Logo? I would be interested in looking at
them. The examples on the disk leave a bit to be desired.


							Gus Fernandez