Re: Development environment

[glen e. p. ropella]

At 09:17 AM 1/8/00 +0100, you wrote:
> I think we agree to not step into the language war trap so
> just let me comment some points.

I agree completely!  [grin]  Plus, the discussion has wandered
from the purpose of the mailing list.

> You are somewhat vague on which memetic progressions took place
> with Java that aren't visible with any other OO language.  From
> my shallow experiences with C++/Java/Sather/ObjC I'm inclined to
> say all these languages supported any OO paradigms that my work
> needed --- hell, I even would state one can write C in a OO way.
> But then, my projects weren't possibly big enough to show some
> of the languages' deficiencies.
> (On a side note, I esp. liked the mathematically rigorous feeling
> of Sather)

Heh, I'm purposefully vague.  The progression I'm talking about
can be best captured by the movement towards things like
beans, rmi, the multifarious api's, the browser/app unification,
etc.  You're right that ObjC (and many other languages) cover
the OO repertoire quite well.  In fact, ObjC presents OO *much*
better than Java, in my oh-so-humble-opinion.  But, OO is not
that big a deal.  In fact, it's not even that helpful in many
simulation/modeling situations.  Swarm even breaks the OO
paradigm in part because of this (probes).  The big deal is
*systems* programming.  And that's where issues like software
reuse, the model/implementation interface, quality assurance,
and maintainability take precedence over the *style* (like OO)
in which the software is written.

So, anyway, the overriding point, here, is not the language,
but the attitude with which the application is created.  A
Swarm modeler should take an *integrative* attitude of pulling
any tool into the mix that gets the job done.  (This pops right
out of Swarm's composability vision.)  Java, Sather, S, Lisp,
or any other tool is available to help you guys do your job.
Limiting oneself to ObjC would be analogous to a mechanic tossing
out half her toolbox just to simplify life.

> Ewig Hail Discordia.

Wherein is explained absolutely everything worth knowing about
absolutely anything.


glen
p.s. I apologize for this spurt of philosophy.  Any continuation
of this thread should probably happen off-line or on the
swarm-modelling list.

--
glen e. p. ropella =><= Feeding the hamster wheel.  Hail Eris!
Home: http://www.trail.com/~gepr                (505) 424-0448
Work: http://www.swarm.com                      (505) 995-0818

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