Re: OO, C++, and something much better!

["Bob Jarvis" <nospam@thankyou.net>]

Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote in article <E4oIFx.Jp4@world.std.com>...
> < snip >
> As you can see from this thread, Smalltalk is well-regarded
> by many of its users, and Ada is well-regarded by many of its users, and
> the same for C -- isn't there some sort of objective reality, that goes
> beyond what programmers think they like?

"Objective reality"?  Pun?  :-)

It seems to me that people know what they like and like what they know, be it in
programming languages or music or what have you.  Those who have never worked
in a language with solid strong typing may perhaps go on a knee-jerk rant about
how awful it is/must be.  Those who have never worked with a true dynamically-typed
language may be unable to envision the possibilities.  I forget who said it, but I 
think that the idea that "where you stand on an issue depends on where you sit"
certainly applies here.

> Hmm.  In the Smalltalk context, it seems that adding compile-time checks
> requires modifying the language, so that there's some way to
> (optionally) declare the type/interface expected for each parameter and
> variable.  I mean, type-inference is all well and good, but there's got
> to be some (preferably fairly localized) information to start inferring
> from.

As a Smalltalk developer there are times where I think I'd like to be able to
specify the class of a message parameter so that some level of "type
checking" could be done.  Something like

	myMessage(String): parm1(String) parm: parm2(Magnitude)

would indicate that myMessage should answer a String (or some subclass of
String), that the first parameter should be a String, and the second parameter
should be a Magnitude.  It would be nice if this was optional - if no classes were
specified then the system shouldn't try to do any checking.

However, as a Smalltalk developer I'm also aware that this isn't absolutely
necessary to developing quality software.  I'm sometimes troubled by the lack
of "control" in Smalltalk - why, anyone can pass anything to any message!
On the other hand I'm sometimes thrilled by the lack of interference - I can hack
the snot out of the code and it'll STILL WORK!  Granted, when I'm working in
C++ I can do the same sort of thing, after a fashion - but after spending a
good deal of time in Smalltalk I find that moving to C++ feels like putting
on a straitjacket.
-- 
Bob Jarvis
Mail addresses hacked to foil automailers!
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