Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!uh2
From: UH2@psuvm.psu.edu (Lee Sailer)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: Looking for an OOD speaker/teacher
Message-ID: <90033.145600UH2@PSUVM.BITNET>
Date: 2 Feb 90 19:56:00 GMT
References: <485f5932.146d0@freefall.UUCP> <38260@apple.Apple.COM>
Distribution: na
Organization: Penn State University
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In article <38260@apple.Apple.COM>, lins@Apple.COM (Chuck Lins) says:
>
>IMHO, this is one of the central problem areas with OOP today - nobody's done
>really large systems with it for critical applications. (If you have done so,

Is NextStep large?  I don't know.  The problem with "large" is that as soon
as people do it, it isn't anymore.  Like the wag who defined AI as the
study of programs we haven't figured out how to write, yet.

In some ways perhaps the original question is a little naive.  It boils down
to "We are about to write a huge program, and are trying to decide if we
should use an OOPL to write it."  Instead, they could take a more exploratory
approach, where they build small systems that test their ideas in a couple
of different languages, with the idea that the ideas that work best will
be translated into encouragement to continue in that style.

What's the proverb?  Plan to throw the first one away.  You will anyway.

I bet that they could start this project in AppleSoft Basic, and still
switch to a better language later with little loss of time or
experience.  Likewize, they could start in Eiffel or Object-C, and if
that turned out to not be such a good idea later, they could drop back
to a language that they already know well.

Of course, they could just start in a language they are already compfortable
with, but then they'd never know what they might have missed.

One last idea.  Along with the big name speaker, invite a bunch of local
experts and academics.  Anyone who'll come, really.  I'd go, for example,
to hear Cox, Meyer, Berard, or probably even those other guys I didn't
recognize (just my parochailism, no comment intended on their expertise),
and after the expensive guy had flown away, I'd be a low priced way to
kick ideas around.

                  lee