Re: Object,Subject,Verb, and Phrase (Sentence) Oriented Programming

["Fernando D. Mato Mira" <matomira@acm.org>]

Rjbotting wrote:

> Fernando D. Mato Mira excogitated:
> > I have to refresh my memory on the specs to see how to classify
> >Ada!!
> Hm.... I've been thinking aabout Ada since this
> came up:
> >Fernando send: aPaper about: subjectOriented to: OOPSLA
> which reminded me of vintage Ada:
> send(subject=>Fernando,object=>aPaper, about=>subjectOriented, to=>OOPSLA);

Comments welcome.    [** see below]

>
> When I was working on the syntax of a
> language I decided that, in general
>   f(a,b,c....)
>   a.f(b,c,....)
>   (a,b).f(c,...)
> etc
> would be different syntax for the same expression

Yup.

>
>
> (What we used to call "syntatic sugar" in the 70s)

"Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semicolon" -- Alan Perlis

>
>
> I also experimented with parsing sentence like
> commands:
>   Fernando: move thePaper to OOPSLA.
> (how did COBOL get in here?)
>

Oh, no! Don't tell me I have sto study OO Cobol now! ;->
Gee. I've become a `language botanist'.. [** AND archeologist!]

>
> I have no data as to what works "best".

What "works best" depends. It seems to me that the categorization tells
you when a language is nicely put together in broad lines. i.e., both Eiffel
and C++
are SO in all these dimensions, but we know there's a difference, isn't it?
;->
But then, they lose some clarity if you extend just the dispatching, for
example.
Fitting in different ones might indicate a need for `more work', but which
in the end can result in a nicer language.


PS:
Really, can't Ada dispatching be upgraded w/o losing backwards-compatibility?
I still
have to get my refs. But for what I remember, it seems so.. Time for a poll..

--
Fernando D. Mato Mira
Real-Time SW Eng & Networking
Advanced Systems Engineering Division
CSEM
Jaquet-Droz 1                   email: matomira AT acm DOT org
CH-2007 Neuchatel                 tel:       +41 (32) 720-5157
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