Re: OOP Language for OS Development

[Anthony Weissenberger <aweissen@fastmail.fm.delete>]

Hyman Rosen wrote:
> In Eiffel, Derived::Foo(Derived) overrides Base::Foo(Base).
> That means that if you have a Base object, and you call
> some_base_reference.Foo(some_other_base_reference), the call
> looks correct, but if some_base_reference is really a Derived
> and some_other_base_reference is not a Derived, you have an
> error.
Your first statement is incorrect. You can decide whether it's 
Derived::Foo (Derived) or Derived::Foo (Base). If you do implement the 
former, you will indeed get an error. If you implement the latter, no 
errors are generated.

Could you provide a scenario where you would need to have both the base 
and derived class existing in the program, and you would need to 
implement Derived::Foo (Derived) overriding Base::Foo (Base)?

> 
> It's a horrible misfeature, but its proponents cling to it
> tenaciously, and they have spent years trying to figure out
> workarounds so that the errors can be caught.

Those are some interesting allegations. Do you have any references which 
support your claims?