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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 109fba,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: fac41,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public From: piercarl@sabi.demon.co.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Subject: Re: What is wrong with OO ? Date: 1997/01/23 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 211765594 x-nntp-posting-host: sabi.demon.co.uk x-disclaimer: Contents reflect my personal views only references: <32D11FD3.41C6@wi.leidenuniv.nl> <5bv37v$prv$1@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU> content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII organization: Home's where my rucksack's mime-version: 1.0 (generated by tm-edit 7.94) newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.object,comp.software-eng Date: 1997-01-23T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: >>> "ok" == Richard A O'Keefe writes: [ ... on ease of learning ``C++'' and its popularity ... ] ok> Speaking as someone who bought the first C++ book to come out, the ok> C++ that became popular in the first place is not the C++ that ok> people discuss now. To start with, it didn't have multiple ok> inheritance, templates, exceptions, or RTTI. Very good point! Which adds to the motivation for my oft repeated stance that ``C++'' is a brand name, and can in effect mean any of a few quite different (even if related by very good backwards compatibility) languages. ok> Hmm. When I learned about C++ in the mid-80s, the only available ok> alternatives _that I was aware of_ were some sort of Lisp (Common ok> Lisp not then being available) with some sort of home brew Flavors ok> lookalike (CLOS not then being available) or Smalltalk. Simula 67 ok> _may_ have been available for VAX & Sun but if there were marketing ok> dollars behind it they never managed to put a mention of it where I ok> could see it. What _were_ the VAX, Sun, Apollo alternatives to C++ ok> a decade ago? This is an excellent point, but one that has some (partial) answers. Most importantly there was ``Objective-C'' which was implemented rather portably by generating ``C'', like 'cfront' was doing for ``C++''; I have my early copy of Brad Cox's "OOP: and evolutionary approach" describing it dated 1986, and indeed I bout it over ten years ago. It was used to develop RMG, an impressive ``Smalltalk''-like graphical environment, which would still be impressive today, never mind 10 years ago, which was being distributed, in very good shape as well, to universities and research institutes in 1987. It is easy to argue that Objective-C never achieved lasting fame for a number of unfortunate reasons; among them that Brad Cox ``cleverly'' kept its compiler proprietary instead of more or less givin it away ("cfront" was licensed fairly cheaply, so that even a one man company like Comeau could port it and sell it on a variety of platforms). But there were other alternatives, which however have remained resolutely locked up in the research world (and some like ``Smalltalk'' have only escaped it as their sell-by-date has already expired). Some of them originated from BTL themselves; there was a number of C derived languages being developed at BTL concurrently with ``C++'', some of them being good contestants. But it was ``C++'', for various not necessarily technical reasons, that became popular within AT&T and the world (again, easy compiler licensing was IMNHO crucial: a bit like the sudden popularity of Pascal in Universities was due to the easy availability of the bytecode compiler, and of the CDC sample implementation). Now, I personally like ``C++'' (up until 2.x, that is, more recent features I like less), for I am a language lawyer and a system implementor with it; but I find it abhorrent that it has become popular as the application development language of choice by anybody, as it is simply too sophisticated and low-level (just like C itself). If only had Objective-C become the application development language of choice! If only more people had seen RMG! and so on.