Re: Sugestion to Multiple Inheritance

[dmitry@elros.cbb-automation.de (Dmitry A. Kazakov)]

On Fri, 25 Jan 2002 00:09:44 +0000, Brian Rogoff
<bpr@bpr.best.vwh.net> wrote:

>On Wed, 23 Jan 2002, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>> On Tue, 22 Jan 2002 16:55:51 +0000, Brian Rogoff
>> <bpr@bpr.best.vwh.net> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> >I prefer the generic approach to the OO approaches.
>> >
>> >IMHO OOP is not as important as the programming world has made it out to
>> >be, and should be used a lot less than it is.
>>
>> If I substitute ADT for OO, will above remain correct then?
>
>I have no idea what point you are trying to make. OO approaches usually
>provide some mix of inheritance (though Common List defstruct has
>inheritance without OOP I think) and run time polymorphism/dynamic
>dispatch. ADTs are an orthogonal feature/capability.

In my view if you strip away myths from OO, the rest will be plain
ADT, i.e. an ability to build new types from old ones. Inheritance and
polymorphism are just methods [among many others] to ease that
process.

>To be specific, I much prefer a language like ML (even SML, which has no
>objects) to one like Java. Of course, I'd rather have OCaml (or Ada) which
>allows me to have OO features when they are appropriate. I just think that
>OO features are not frequently needed or desirable.

Let's forget objects and classes [it is enough to have types and
variables] as well as implementation/compilation issues [for a minute
(:-))]. Now, what is wrong with:

1. Any type* can be derived from
2. Any type* may have initialization and finalization
3. A dispatching argument can by of any type*

[*] class-wide types are excluded.

>You may certainly disagree, as there are still nations which allow that.

Yes, becase IMO the rational part of OO is ADT and I believe that
practically any program requires some form of ADT. Then I'd prefer ADT
to generics.

Regards,
Dmitry Kazakov