An OO history

[John Hinsley]

Many thanks, Jecel and Jay for all the links and comments. 

I knew of the existence of Objective C (although I've not looked at any
code and know nothing of its history), but Apple Object Pascal I'd never
heard of. In developmental terms, is it part of the Delphi branch or a
seperate offshoot from Pascal?

I must try and fit Eiffel into my mental picture, too. I recall that the
SmallEiffel people refer to Pascal a great deal, but I'm not sure if
this indicates a significant developmental link or simply hinges around
a similar syntax. (It could even be -- in a nice way, there's nothing
wrong with being proud of being French -- a nationalistic thing!)

Jay mentions Mark Guzdial's _Squeak_ book. I was aware that it was in
the works, but didn't know it was out yet. Must go and buy a copy.

I'll try and do something with all this material, although the course
I'm currently doing (the Open University's M206 "Computing: An
Object-oriented Approach") has no historical/developmental component,
focussing on learning Smalltalk (through a specialised version of
Learning Works) and program design and development.

In the meantime, here are two of my favourite quotes, which I'm sure you
two have come across, but which others may not have:

http://x37.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=564595555&CONTEXT=949863157.89849870&hitnum=0 
Author: 
 Eric Clayberg 
 <clayberg at instantiations.com> 

Patrick Logan <patrick at c837917-a.potlnd1.or.home.com> 
wrote in message 
news:hTN84.453$HT1.6388 at news.rdc1.wa.home.com... 
> 
> I wish the original Oak team had chosen to adopt Smalltalk 
> rather than invent Java 

They tried to, but ParcPlace wanted too much on a per-copy royalty
basis...sigh 


And:

"The main problem for the C++ community today is to use Standard C++ in
the way it was intended rather than as a glorified C or a poor man's
Smalltalk." 
 - Bjarne Stroustrup (inventor of C++), "Getting From The Past To The
Future" , p. 23 C++ Report, SIGS Nov/Dec 1999 Vol1 No.10 


Thanks again

John




-- 
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