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

[jls@netcom.COM (Jim Showalter)]

Overall, a nice cogent post. I have a few quibbles (don't I always?):

>1) Just because Ada currently supports large systems development well, does not
>   mean that it can't support that activity better.

Agreed. However, I have not seen any compelling argument(s) to the effect
that, if Ada supported "pure" OO, it would support development of large
complex systems any better than it does now. I HAVE heard a lot of quasi-
religious tub-thumping for pure OO as a miracle cure-all for what ails
software development organizations, but I've seen precious little hard
data in its favor, and precious few success stories. Mind you, I'm not
predisposed to reject pure OO as a valid software engineering paradigm--I
actually find the model rather pleasing from an aesthetic standpoint--but
I DO think it's fair to ask what proof there is that pure OO is anything
more than a research toy and/or snake oil du jour that sells compilers
and introductory texts but produces few if any demonstrable results. I
have buckets full of success stories for Ada in large complex systems:
I am STILL waiting to hear success stories for pure OO on similar systems
(and no, 20K programming-in-the-small efforts don't count).

>However, we shouldn't try to argue against the OO extensions because C++ 
>doesn't seem to have exhibited success in large systems development when 
>we also argue that large systems development is outside of the reasonable 
>problem domain for the C/C++ language.  

Speak for yourself--there are plenty of people arguing that C++ IS suited
for the development of large complex systems. Some even make that claim
for C.

>It might help if those who advocate those extensions will also supply the
>arguements (or references to same) for why those features are desirable.

Indeed.
-- 
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