Re: Moving from C to C++

[Ken Garlington <GarlingtonKE@lfwc.lockheed.com>]

Dirk Wessels wrote:
> 
> Hello,
> 
> I implemented inheritance in C by making a function-table for each class
> and calling the functions indirectly.
> While I wanted to use C++ needed to use this because:

Perhaps you should have considered using Ada.

> 1. The system should be compatible with almost any other platform.
>     Only GNU-C++ was fully compatible accross platforms,
>     but was not available for all versions of Unix.

Ada is available on a variety of platforms.

> 2. The program should be readable by other programmers.
>     Most other programmers only knew C.

Ada is quite readable - in fact, it was designed to be this way.

> 3. The other parts of the system were build in C and Fortran.
>     If you are adding C++ as well to the language-set it gets
>     very hard to fit them together.

Ada has explicit support for operation with other languages such as C and
Fortran.

> 4. The program should be able to compile for quite a few years.
>     The C++ standard was changing and still is.

Ada is an ISO standard (the first ISO standard for a full object-oriented
language, in fact), and is quite stable.