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From: code@sphinx.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.pascal
Subject: need info on C++ vs Object Pascal vs Objective C vs etc
Message-ID: <2016@sphinx.uchicago.edu>
Date: Mon, 29-Jun-87 00:57:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.2016
Posted: Mon Jun 29 00:57:22 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 30-Jun-87 01:21:26 EDT
Reply-To: uicbert!wilson@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu (paul robinson wilson)
Distribution: world
Organization: U of Illin' at Chicago    Electronic Mind Control Laboratory
Lines: 47
Keywords: elegance popularity portability
Xref: utgpu comp.lang.misc:462 comp.lang.c++:310 comp.lang.pascal:149

I am interested in hearing about the relative merits of object oriented
programming languages.  I am especially interested in languages that are
faster than Smalltalk but relatively standard.

(Please forgive if some of this redunds with a previous posting.  Our computer
was off the net for a while, and I never saw a response.  I am not sure my
previous posting went out at all.)

Some of my concerns:

  1) C++ seems unnecessarily arcane to me.  It seems to me to be too much
like C (terse, unfriendly, really-low-level) in the ways I prefer Pascal
(idealized).  I would like to be able to truly dynamically bind methods
in a straightforward way.  (Please, no C-vs-Pascal flames.  I recognize
many strengths of C, but they're not as critical to me as to many others.)

  2) Is Object Pascal good?  Is it available (or will it be soon) for
machines other than the Macs?  Will it become a standard, or will it remain
an Apple oddity?

  3) Is anyone developing an interpreter for C++?  This seems like the way
for C++ to go, if possible.  (Then it might never be necessary to write a
true C++ compiler.  You could develop in an interpreter, and endure slow
translation-compilation when you were pretty much finished.)  Would it be
particularly hard for somebody to write a C++ interpreter?

  4) How much momentum is there behind these languages (and others, like
Objective-C)?  Is it time to get with it, or time to wait and see?  I am
looking for a popular, portable language.

  5) How is Actor doing?  Is it available for Mac's?

  6) Has anybody used Little Smalltalk?  Any reactions?

  7) Are there any emerging standard interfaces between o-o languages and X?

  8) Has anybody got a decently fast o-o lisp with real-time (e.g. incremental)
     or near-real-time garbage collection?


Please respond directly to me at the e-mail address below (do not trust
header addresses).  I'll summarize to the net if there's interest expressed.
Thanks,
| Paul R. Wilson       ph.: (312) 947-0740      uucp: ...!ihnp4!uicbert!wilson |
| Electronic Mind Control* Lab     if no answer: ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!code |
| UIC EECS Dept. (M/C 154)               arpa: uicbert!wilson@uxc.cso.uiuc.edu |
| P.O.Box 4348   Chicago,IL 60680   (*a.k.a. Human-Computer Interaction)       |