OOP and large systems (was: Ada vs C++, ...)

[gbt@sequoia.cray.com (Greg Titus)]

In article <1991May30.004144.24252@netcom.COM> jls@netcom.COM (Jim Showalter) writes:
> [Somebody else writes:]
>>I won't argue the point that Ada is far superior when it comes to large system
>>development. This is a fact, plain and simple, and C++ cannot hold a candle
>>to Ada's abilities to decompose a problem into managable pieces and insure
>>the consistency between them. However, Ada is not all things to all programming
>>tasks, and one of the things it isn't is an object oriented programming
>>language.
>
>From the above paragraph, we have these two statements:
>
>1) Ada is a superior language for engineering large complex systems.
>2) Ada is not particularly supportive of OOP.
>
>These two statements lead to the following conclusion:
>
>3) OOP is largely irrelevant when it comes to engineering large complex systems.
>
>Now, far be it from me to actually MAKE this claim [;-)], I'm merely
>pointing out that it is the inevitable subtext of the above paragraph.

I don't see that, Jim.  I'd replace your 3) with "Ada is not the best
language when it comes to engineering large complex OO systems."
(Replace "not the best language" with "largely irrelevant" if you want
to retain the strength of your original conclusion.)

My own feeling is that we simply don't *have* a true object-oriented
language that is also appropriate for large systems.  Might be a neat
thing to work on, though ...

greg
--
--------------------------------------------------------------
Greg Titus (gbt@zia.cray.com)             Compiler Group (Ada)
Cray Research, Inc.                               Santa Fe, NM
Opinions expressed herein (such as they are) are purely my own.