Programming language C vs c++ (was: [GRASS5] Want GNU libavl ?)

John Reid jgreid at uow.edu.au
Tue Feb 5 06:52:03 EST 2002


Hi Bernhard et al,

Back from minor sidetracks (like moving house etc).

Bernhard Reiter wrote:

  >
  >Without going into the details I do not consider C++ a nice
  >programming language. There are also general doubts regarding
  >the object-orientated approach in computer science now.
  >It concerns databases and programming languages.
  >
Can you please provide further pointers to where I can start to read up
about this?  I was under the impression that OO is still considered to
be a good thing, if well designed and coded.  IIRC, the GoF's "Design
Patterns" book has some good comments about that.  Now if only I can
find where it is hiding after the move...

Most of the concerns that I am aware of in the database world seem to be
related more to the "mapping" of concepts between the object-oriented
approach and the object-relational data model.  Would the concerns you
refer to be related to what appears to me as a potential problem imposed
by the necessity to define functions as a member or friend in the class
definition?  I'm no expert, but AFAICT this seems to be a necessity in
C++ which would have implications for extensibility.  Note that I'm not
sure about either of these.  Anyone?  Interestingly, IIRC the example
code for "extensibility" patterns described in the design patterns book
is frequently coded in Smalltalk rather than C++.

It is probably worth keeping in mind for future GRASS development that
both Geomatics standards I am aware of (ISO and OpenGIS) are based on
the object-oriented approach.

  >For a pointer to skepticsm regarding C++ see one of the
  >better "language discussions":
  >
  >	http://www.advogato.org/article/207.html
  >
Some proponents as well.  I find it interesting that CORBA and design
patterns crop up :-)  More on that later.

cheers,
John

-- 
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john reid                                     e-mail jgreid at uow.edu.au

uproot your questions from their ground and the dangling roots will be
seen.  more questions!
                                                         -mentat zensufi

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