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From: reggie@dinsdale.nm.paradyne.com (George W. Leach)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: Smalltalk-80 like inheritance in C++ possible ?
Message-ID: <5876@pdn.paradyne.com>
Date: 29 Mar 89 11:38:30 GMT
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Reply-To: reggie@dinsdale.paradyne.com (George W. Leach)
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In article <404@ntcsd1.UUCP> klt@ntcsd1.UUCP (Kristopher Tyra) writes:


>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 ! :-) ).  

    That is correct.  And furthermore, that is the way it should be.
However...........

>'C' has been forced into markets it was never intended to be in.  

    There is a reason for this.  The reason is that C can be applied
to lots of applications, even some for which it was not intended and
it still holds up well.  It is difficult to justify to management
that one must learn a barrage of languages in order to get something
done.  Training and learning curves are major issues.  And how often
have you seen a project where the language, hardware, os, etc....
has been dictated by either company policy or some marketing 
consideration, not by the programmers?

    Don Norman points out in some of his writings on design (not just
program design) that often one must try to think of unintended uses
that a customer might make of a product and be prepared for them.


>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.  


    Oh, but people will try.  The attractiveness of the low cost PC as
a platform will get all sorts of people to attempt to do things for
which it was not intended.


George W. Leach					AT&T Paradyne 
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