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From: "Nick Roberts" <Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com>
Subject: Re: Question (was Re: How to write TYPECASE in Ada 95?)
Date: 1999/02/24
Date: 1999-02-24T00:00:00+00:00	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <7b2544$4qd$1@plug.news.pipex.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 7avc0i$cnb$1@its.hooked.net

Object oriented programming is considered by many to be more (or entirely)
about a programming methodology (a 'mentality', if you like), rather than
just a particular set of programming tools, or the characteristics of a
particular programming language. It also has its own argot: you use
'objects' to model real-life entities; you organise those objects into the
hierarchies - or 'classes' - their real-world analogues exhibit; objects
interact by sending each other 'messages'; and so on.

I think Ada 95 was always designed to provide sufficient language 'tools' to
support an object-oriented methodology, without actually imposing that (or
any other) methodology (or terminology), as such. You can use tagged types
simply for 'programming-by-extension', without having to subscribe to the
whole object oriented 'mentality'. Or, if you wish, you can use them as a
part of a full-blooded object-oriented design approach. As you wish.

The thing that has always stood out to me about object oriented designs is
that a good design is almost always directly transferable from one
programming language to another. There's definitely something fundamental
about it. A good OO design can be a great design. Possibly the best thing
about it is that it persuades programmers to design at a higher level of
abstraction than they otherwise would. It's just a pity that all the
ballyhoo surrounding the subject at the moment could easily lead a lot of
people to think nothing of it.

-------------------------------------
Nick Roberts
-------------------------------------








  parent reply	other threads:[~1999-02-24  0:00 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 34+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
1999-02-05  0:00 How to write TYPECASE in Ada 95? Norman Ramsey
1999-02-05  0:00 ` Brian Rogoff
1999-02-05  0:00   ` David C. Hoos, Sr.
1999-02-05  0:00     ` Brian Rogoff
1999-02-06  0:00   ` Ed Falis
1999-02-06  0:00     ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-06  0:00       ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-17  0:00     ` Tom Moran
1999-02-18  0:00       ` Matthew Heaney
1999-02-18  0:00         ` robert_dewar
1999-02-19  0:00           ` Tom Moran
1999-02-19  0:00           ` Nick Roberts
1999-02-18  0:00         ` Tom Moran
1999-02-18  0:00         ` Tom Moran
1999-02-18  0:00           ` Matthew Heaney
1999-02-19  0:00     ` Tom Moran
1999-02-19  0:00       ` Tom Moran
1999-02-23  0:00       ` Samuel Mize
1999-02-23  0:00         ` Question (was Re: How to write TYPECASE in Ada 95?) Mike Silva
1999-02-24  0:00           ` (long) programming by extension (was: " Samuel Mize
1999-02-24  0:00             ` (long) programming by extension Samuel Mize
1999-02-25  0:00               ` (shorter and new) " Samuel Mize
1999-02-25  0:00                 ` Mike Silva
1999-02-26  0:00                   ` Samuel Mize
1999-02-24  0:00           ` Nick Roberts [this message]
1999-02-24  0:00           ` Question (was Re: How to write TYPECASE in Ada 95?) Samuel T. Harris
1999-02-24  0:00             ` Matthew Heaney
1999-02-24  0:00               ` Tucker Taft
1999-02-06  0:00 ` How to write TYPECASE in Ada 95? Matthew Heaney
1999-02-06  0:00 ` David C. Hoos, Sr.
1999-02-06  0:00   ` Matthew Heaney
1999-02-06  0:00     ` Matthew Heaney
1999-02-06  0:00     ` Matthew Heaney
1999-02-09  0:00     ` David C. Hoos, Sr.
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