Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!mcnc!rti!ntcsd1!klt
From: klt@ntcsd1.UUCP (Kristopher L. Tyra)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Smalltalk-80 like inheritance in C++ possible ?
Message-ID: <404@ntcsd1.UUCP>
Date: 28 Mar 89 15:54:06 GMT
References: <110@honold.UUCP> <5481@rlvd.UUCP> <1411@sw1e.UUCP> <9174@claris.com> <1421@sw1e.UUCP> <1914@dataio.Data-IO.COM>
Reply-To: klt@ntcsd1.UUCP (Kristopher Tyra)
Organization: Northern Telecom,  Research Triangle Park,  North Carolina
Lines: 56

In article <7668@june.cs.washington.edu> rkr@uw-june.UUCP (R. K. Raj) writes:

>I AM a computer scientist (got two CS degrees to write home about, anyway :=).
>And I'd say I am a good programmer, but perhaps a lousy hacker.
>
>The real problem is that there aren't any *good* object-oriented languages
>(outside the research world, and even inside!) that have efficient
>implementations for people to use for practical programming. While the
>design and implementation of C++ shows a brilliant way of adding
>"object-oriented"ness to C, there's only so much that can be done to C (or
>for that matter to any existing language). There is rather like Fortran;
>none of the various dialects, Fortran-77 before/after, can really hide the
>face of Fortran from seeping through.
>
>There are times when it makes sense to start off with a clean slate, and
>this is one such occasion. Unfortunately, I think that the time/money/effort
>that will be spent on C++ guarantees that we all are doomed (destined if you
>object :=) to become expert C++ programmers. Or stick to Fortran :=)
>
>  -  R. K. Raj
>     rkr@june.cs.washington.edu
>     rkr@uw-june.UUCP          


I think the real problem has come out.  C++ is not really designed to be
smalltalk or even Objective-C it is designed to be an enhancment to C (
hence C++ :-) ).  If you need to do list processing you don't use Fortran you
use LISP.  My point is that Computer Science has developed a rich set of
tools to solve problems at different levels ( USE THEM ! :-) ).  

'C' has been forced into markets it was never intended to be in.  
My suggestion is not to do the same with C++.  If you need week 
typing and strong OOP use smalltalk.  Ok, smalltalk is inefficient and 
slow, but don't try and run an image processing task on a PC/AT either.  

We use C++ here at Northern to give 'C' software maintainance capabilities 
that just weren't there in 'C'.  We use both the object oriented 
features and the strong typing and it becomes very usefull for our purpose.
However, we do not try and use Gorlen's OOPS package because it takes 
the language to it's farthest extrems ( Don't get me wrong, the package has
some very good work in it ).  In doing this, we end up 
generating hard to read code and I think all here would agree the
major problem in Software is re-use and maintainance.  

So to summarize, it is good that we suggest the corrections and 
changes in the language to make it a more refined language. 
But don't attempt to make the language something it is not!


		Kristopher L. Tyra
		Northern Telecom, Inc.
		800 Perimeter Park
		Raleigh, NC 27595
		(919) 481-5595

		klt@mcnc!rti!ntcsd1