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

[matt@physics2.berkeley.edu (Matt Austern)]

In article <1995Apr21.190040.7332@rcmcon.com> rmartin@rcmcon.com (Robert Martin) writes:

> What these arguments do not do, is what Grady did above.  He defined
> the term.  
> 
> As it happens, I don't much care for Grady's definition.  For one
> thing, I don't understand the benefit of 'purity' as he describes it.

What's really interesting is that the definition Curtis quoted isn't
the same as the one he's (implicitly) using!  The definition he's
using is that a "pure" OOL is one in which it's impossible to define
functions that don't belong to objects.  The one he quoted, though, is
that a "pure" OOL is one in which everything is an object.

I agree that "pure" is a loaded word and that we should stop using it.
However, I do see the benefits of having a language where classes and
basic built-in types and operating system resources are objects;
languages like that make it much easier to treat things consistently.
A well-designed class hierarchy that includes the basic types and
that's rooted in some class like Object or ANY can sometimes be quite
useful.

It's not foolish to make a distinction between languages that have
that sort of hierarchy and that have a base class from which all
classes inherit, and languages that don't.  "Pure" is probably the
wrong word to use for that distinction; can anyone suggest a better?
--
Matt Austern				      matt@physics.berkeley.edu
http://dogbert.lbl.gov/~matt