From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3d3f20d31be1c33a X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Andrew.Dunstan@its.maynick.com.au (Andrew Dunstan) Subject: Re: Is ADA as good for graphics programming as C? (WAS: Re: Avoiding the second historic mistake) Date: 1997/07/21 Message-ID: <33d35024.0@news2.maynick.com.au>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 258534065 References: <5qs47k$duf@drn.zippo.com> Organization: Mayne Nickless Ltd ITS Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-07-21T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article , Brian Rogoff wrote: >I think it is a gross error of reasoning to suggest that OO inheritance is >somehow "natural" because we use the same word "inheritance" to describe >the process of the passing of genetic material from a biological entity to >its offspring. I suppose poorly designed inheritance hierarchies must also >be natural, since in nature we have examples of snippets of genetic >material being transferred by virus. Reasoning by analogy is particularly >suspect here. > Right. I once heard a computer scientist, who now occupies a prestigious chair, say that only left derived top down parsers should be used because that is how people read natural language. Not only is this a dubious proposition at best (I have seen research indicating that bottom up LR parsing has significant analogues in the way we read). but I can see no reason why a computer parser should mimic a human. So let's steer clear of dubious analogies. cheers andrew ------------------------------------------------------------------------- There's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so - Hamlet http://www.gr-lakes.com/~andrew (including PGP key) PGP Key fingerprint = 5C 44 7D E4 76 A3 31 DE 3D 11 FA 15 4D 87 1F 5E -------------------------------------------------------------------------