Re: C++ not OOP? (Was: Language Efficiency

[Curtis Bass <cbass%intmeds1.utmb@mhost.utmb.edu>]

ncohen@watson.ibm.com (Norman H. Cohen) wrote:
>
> In article <3muavq$46u@atlantis.utmb.edu>, Curtis Bass
> <cbass%intmeds1.utmb@mhost.utmb.edu> writes: 
> 
> |> ncohen@watson.ibm.com (Norman H. Cohen) wrote: 
> ....
> |> >            It is easy to do a straightforward transliteration of a
> |> > Fortran IV program into Smalltalk, for example.

-- snip --

> |> The bottom line is that your "straightforward transliteration
> |> of a Fortran IV program into Smalltalk" will STILL result in
> |> an Object-Oriented program, although it will have bad OO
> |> Design. There is no way around it -- your procedures cannot
> |> exist as independent entities; they must be attached to an
> |> object.
> 
> That's a pretty superficial definition of what constitutes OOP.
> Given that all-encompassing definition, there's no point in wasting time
> discussing what attributes OO programs might or might not possess.

You missed the point. Plain and simple. I guess you are one
of the many who simply don't WANT to get it.

I don't understand why this is, and why people INSIST on
being offended by all of this.

> Mechanically applying labels is a silly exercise.  Suppose I were to
> write a new language named Bigtalk.  Its reference manual is identical to
> the Smalltalk manual, except that all occurrences of the word "object"
> have been replaced by "egg salad" (after which the sentence "Some
> computer scientists egg salad to this approach," has been restored to its
> original form).  Would you say that if the Fortran transliteration is fed
> to a Bigtalk interpreter instead of a Smalltalk interpreter, it now
> consitutes an egg-salad-oriented program instead of an object-oriented
> program, because all procedures are attached to egg salads?

Technically, the answer to your question is "yes." So what?
If you want to think that "object-oriented" is as meaningless
as "egg salad," as a definition of a paradigm, then that's
your business. Just don't tell me that I have to think the
way you do. Decreeing that your opinion on this matter must be
treated as the universal truth is ill-advised. Besides, as I
have stated, this misses the point entirely.

It appears that those who object to the term "object-oriented"
are not aware of what is is, what it means, or what benefits
it provides.

> Norman H. Cohen    ncohen@watson.ibm.com



				Curtis Bass
				Software Systems Specialist II
				University of Texas Medical Branch