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From: code@sphinx.uchicago.edu (paul robinson wilson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.lisp
Subject: language issues (was Re: teaching object-oriented simulation & modelling)
Message-ID: <1995@sphinx.uchicago.edu>
Date: Tue, 16-Jun-87 00:06:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1995
Posted: Tue Jun 16 00:06:44 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 21-Jun-87 08:36:34 EDT
References: <7116@linus.UUCP>
Reply-To: uicbert!wilson@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (paul robinson wilson)
Organization: U of I at Chi. EECS Dept. (Electronic Mind Control Lab)
Lines: 49
Keywords: availability, speed, portability, graphics
Summary: want to know about various o-o languages -- elegance, speed, graphics
Xref: mnetor comp.lang.smalltalk:160 comp.lang.c++:329 comp.lang.lisp:288

In article <7116@linus.UUCP> sdl@linus.UUCP (Steven D. Litvintchouk) writes:
>
>We may soon have a need to train several engineers in using
>object-oriented techniques for discrete-event simulation and
>modelling.  (Languages such as Smalltalk-80 and Simula-67 come to
>mind.)
>
>We are therefore interested in finding out if there are any courses,
>tutorials, textbooks, etc., that are good introductions to this
>subject.  (Note what we are looking for is how to do object-oriented
>simulation and modelling in Smalltalk or Simula as opposed to software
>development.  We know of lots of books that teach simulation in
>Simscript and GPSS, but not simulation in Smalltalk or Simula; other
>than the Blue Book, which barely touches on the subject.)

I too am interested in this, and have several other questions as well:

  1) What are the emerging o-o standards?  Besides Smalltalk, are there
     any relatively standard languages with significant graphics?
     (e.g. are there standard graphics in SCOOPS or CommonLOOPS?)

  2) Where should I look for a good intro to issues in the design of
     object-oriented languages, especially simulation languages?
     (This might include comparing existing languages like C++ and
     Objective C, with an idea to the relevant tradeoffs.)

  3) Where should I look for info on the availability, features and
     performance of various O-O languages. (e.g. how fast is PARCPlace
     Smalltalk, is it available?)

My interest in these matters is twofold: (a) I have some ideas for the design
of a new kind of simulation language and would like to know the worthwhile
features of the current ones; and (2), I'm working on a debugger that will
eventually be visually interactive. (I would like to be able to write the
graphics in a pleasant, reasonably efficient language and maintain portability
between various brands of UNIX workstations.)

(These graphics may involve significant non-graphics-primitive computation
to figure out layouts, using a breadth-first marker-passing scheme.  We have
to be able to tweak this part to run at least a third or so as fast as C
code.  We don't mind bypassing the message-passing scheme now and then.)

Any information would be greatly appreciated.  If I get a good response and
people are interested, I'll summarize to the net.  Thanks.

| Paul R. Wilson       ph.: (312) 947-0740      uucp: ...!ihnp4!uicbert!wilson |
| Electronic Mind Control* Lab     if no answer: ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!code |
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