bnfb@cs.washington.edu (Bjorn Freeman-Benson) (11/08/90)
In article <1864.2736eae0@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> klimas@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com writes: > Basically, OO in a language that doesn't properly support it > is a real problem! Hogwash! Fancy tools do not a craftsperson make. Better yet, read the article in CACM which was a reprint/improvement of the paper in OOPSLA'86 titled "An Object-Oriented Approach to a Large Scientific Application". Jonathan Jacky and Ira Kalet wrote a large radiation therapy treatment planning program in PASCAL, definitely not an object-oriented language. The conclusion on page 374 of the OOPSLA version is "We learned that object-oriented programming is useful for ..., and does not require the support of a special programming language. Our experience confirms that of others who have attempted an an object-oriented style in the context of traditional programming environments [references CACM Oct 1982 re a object-oriented project in FORTRAN]. We feel that it is important to distinguish between object-oriented design, and object-oriented languages... Programming tools can provide many conveniences, but in our view they are really central to the object-oriented approach. Bjorn N. Freeman-Benson