rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (06/06/84)
Starting from an earlier mention of object-oriented programming: >In reference to your `brash statement', ``If in an introductory >programming course, you teach anything other than an object oriented >programming language, such as Lisp, CLU, or Smalltalk (sorry folks, >Pascal does not count), you are brain-damaging your students almost as >much as if you taught them Basic,'' I must admit to being completely in >the dark as to your definition of `object oriented'... I'm certainly confused as well about what all the `object-oriented' flap is about. Most of the useful capability seems to exist in, say, Simula (which, by the way, is some 17 years old). All I've been able to find in Smalltalk descriptions is a systematic renaming of concepts that most of us understand - sort of a `NewSpeak' of programming language ideas. I also wonder about the "brain-damage" idea - I feel like it's equating brain-damage <==> useful in the real world If you can't see that "applying operators to operands" and "sending messages to objects" are duals of one another, you're going to have trouble with ANY need for abstract reasoning. -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...Never offend with style when you can offend with substance.