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

[mintaka!think.com!spool.mu.edu!munnari.oz.au!murtoa.cs.mu.oz.au!csv.viccol.edu.au!dougcc@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Douglas Miller)]

In article <085657.19195@timbuk.cray.com>, gbt@sequoia.cray.com (Greg Titus) writes:

> 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."

What is a "large complex OO system", as opposed to a large complex system
developed useing OO?  You appear to be assuming what Jim has asked to be
shown.

> 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 ...

You have definitely missed the point.  Jim want to know how useful "true"
OO features (inheritance et al) are to large-scale development as compared
with those boring old OO features (static data abstraction et al).  So do
I.  Does anyone have any evidence one way or the other?

--
Douglas Miller <douglas.miller@viccol.edu.au>
Phone:     +61 3 805 3262      Fax: +61 3 808 9497
Post:      Computer Services, Victoria College, BURWOOD 3125, AUSTRALIA
Location:  Building A, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria, Australia