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From: adamj@thoth17.berkeley.edu.BERKELEY.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: software ICs vs. libraries
Message-ID: <5606@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 23-Oct-87 19:33:30 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.5606
Posted: Fri Oct 23 19:33:30 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Oct-87 18:18:48 EST
References: <1691@culdev1.UUCP>
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Reply-To: adamj@widow.berkeley.edu (Adam J. Richter)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
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Xref: mnetor comp.lang.misc:780 comp.software-eng:5

In article <1691@culdev1.UUCP> drw@culdev1.UUCP (Dale Worley) writes:
>Another feature of "software ICs" comes from the fact that they are
>part of an object-oriented system.  One can actually write, say, a
>linked list manager that will work on objects of *any* type.  In most
>languages, this is impossible to do in a library routine.

	"Object oriented?"  What you are describing involves
parameteized typing and polymorphic routines.  Objected oriented
programming (in my book) involves data hiding and polymorphic routines.
Parameterized typing is an independent concept from data hiding.

	Parameterized typing should be a tremendous win because it
then becomes possible to change the lower levels of a hierarchical
type without affecting the routines that only need to know some overall
information about that type.

	I'd like to drop the term "software IC" as that an IC is noticibly
deficient in this low-level parameterization.  E.g., I can't buy a TTL IC
from Radio Shack, buy a GaAs description module, apply one to the other,
and get my favorite chip design in GaAs.  The chip design has to be
reworked by the manufacturer, just like present day software has to be
recompiled and probably edited by an owner of the source code.

>I suspect that I could write considerably less code if I could write
>in one statement all the trivial, but extremely stereotyped, bits of
>code.  After all, what fraction of your lines of code are
>loop-and-search, and other completely standard stuff?
>Dale

	Right on!

		--Adam J. Richter
		  adamj@widow.berkeley.edu
		  ...!ucbvax!widow!adamj
Adam J. Richter			adamj@widow.berkeley.edu
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