Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!apple!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!fabbott
From: fabbott@athena.mit.edu (Freeland K Abbott)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Smalltalk-80 like inheritance in C++ possible ?
Message-ID: <10112@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 26 Mar 89 02:30:21 GMT
References: <110@honold.UUCP> <5481@rlvd.UUCP> <1411@sw1e.UUCP> <9174@claris.com> <1421@sw1e.UUCP> <1335@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: fabbott@athena.mit.edu (Freeland K Abbott)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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In article <1335@blake.acs.washington.edu> keffer@blake.acs.washington.edu (Thomas Keffer) writes:

>What to do?  It seems to me there are 6 main _PRACTICAL_ problems now
>
>1) Poor quality compilers.  You never know if it's you or cfront.
	   Obligatory plug for g++, a native compiler... which admittedly
	   has its own problems as well...
>2) Few gurus.
	   Nice to be on the cutting edge, right?  :-)
>3) Few "known correct" examples of non-trivial code.
	   Mmm.  I see lots of correct code, but only in a limited range
	   of applications.  But the application I'm working on at Lotus
	   is written in C++, which is why I'm trying to learn it...
>4) Only two books, neither of them very good.
	   By now, I bet there're more than two books.  If not, I'd be
	   happy to write one!  In a few months at least, that is...
>5) Few precanned, bulletproof classes.
	   This is what I see as the real potential strength of C++.
	   Eventually, I think you'll have huge libraries of classes
	   which people will link to to do much of anything.  But yes,
	   most will probably do it in C...
>6) Steep learning curve, especially to learn writing new classes.

MIT has a course for freshmen which teaches OOP concepts (they use
scheme, a dialect of LISP, though).  I don't know... I was exposed to
the ideas at work first, so they don't seem as bizarre as they do to
some of my classmates, but I still don't think they're that hard to
grasp.  I think most of the learning curve comes from having to deal
with the typing problems (that's what gives me headaches...), and I
think that with time (a) people will figure out how to deal with them
and will be able to pass that along, and (b) most of the really ugly
ones will be buried in the previously mentioned library.
Freeland K. Abbott                    fabbott@athena.mit.edu
454F 410 Memorial Drive               MIT Undergrad (undeclared)
Cambridge, MA 02139  USA              "stop the world, I want to get off..."