Re: Why and how do organizations select the OO

[agate!doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!yorkohm!minster!mjl-b@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU]

In article <1993Jan26.153250.18892@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael
 Feldman) writes
>In article <1993Jan25.155937.10417@ennews.eas.asu.edu> koehnema@enuxha.eas.asu
.edu (Harry Koehnemann) writes:
>>Interesting.  I saw the same thing out here.  A friend of mine works at
>>a company (also nameless) developing a very large real-time system.  There
>>were many variables in this project  - new processor, new language (Ada),
>>very large project, drastically reduced cycle time, and new development
>>method (OO) - ie. lots of risk.  They had hired a consultant to help in
>>specification and design who basically told them that "if you're going to
>>use Ada, you have to use OO spec/design"  
>
>This is fascinating, Harry. The received wisdom I seem to be hearing a
>lot of seems to use the same words to make a different statement: "If
>you're going to use OO spec/design, forget about Ada, because it doesn't
>support multiple inheritance." Both statements are BS, of course.

I went for a job interview last week. Over lunch, I was talking to a guy
from the Air Traffic Control sector of the company I was being interviewed
by. We got to discussing Ada, and he said he knew very little about it, save
that it had concurrency features, and didn't support full OO inheritance.

Me:  "No, Ada 83 doesn't have full inheritance, but you don't need it for OO
design"
Him: "But inheritance is the cornerstone of OO design."
Me:  "Er... no it isn't"

Diplomacy (all right, the fact that I wanted a job) won the day at this point.
This is what people who have been designing and writing software for years
think... no wonder Ada has acceptance trouble.

>Mike Feldman

Regards,

Mat

| Mathew Lodge                      | "But my Lord! I've been in your family |
| mjl-b@minster.york.ac.uk          | since 1532!"    "So has syphilis"      |
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