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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,b5b75c5bf3ae7291 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 1995-03-08 09:07:35 PST Path: bga.com!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!gatech!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!zip.eecs.umich.edu!newshost.marcam.com!uunet!explorer.csc.com!usenet From: Jeff Seigle Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Implement Inheritance (Ada83)? Date: 7 Mar 1995 19:03:06 GMT Organization: CSC, Bethesda, MD Message-ID: <3jiala$kqs@explorer.csc.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: jseigle-pc.hq.csci.csc.com X-Newsreader: Date: 1995-03-07T19:03:06+00:00 List-Id: In article <3jhj04$2dv@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes: >....Inheritance is a conceptual idea, not a >syntactic gizmo. ...you can perfectly well implement' >the fundamental abstraction mechanism that we call inheritance in ANY >language! Although this statement is true, the best results are had when the language has exlicit in its fabric the concepts that you are using to design your software. This seems to be the motivation for design of modern languages, the support for techniques that developed as design concepts. Years ago I wrote Fortran programs that used a quirk of the language to implement encapsulation (a kind of crude OOD; I won't include the boring details here). This approach has pros and cons. The advantage is that you are using concepts as advanced as you can without being constrained by the language. The big negative is that once the code is written there is no enforcement of your wonderful ideas, and the next one to come along with a mod can stomp down all of your imaginary fences. Jeff Seigle CSC