[self-interest] Re: An OO history

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

On Thursday 05 April 2001 12:54, John Hinsley wrote:

> I knew of the existence of Objective C (although I've not looked at
> any code and know nothing of its history),

It was basically C that allowed you to mix Smalltalk-like expressions 
in the middle of your code. Much more dynamic than C++ and, in my 
opinion, the reason NextStep got better results than Talligent and 
similar OS efforts (BeOS can be considered a success, but mostly by 
working around C++).

> 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?

Object Pascal was associated with Apple's MacApp framework, and was 
probably the inspiration for the much later OO additions to Turbo 
Pascal (now Delphi) since they were so similar, though there are only 
so many ways you can extend records into classes/objects (see Oberon 
for a similar, but parallel, development).

> 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!)

There was no link as far as I know. Everone was doing Pascal looking 
languages back then just as they are all doing C clones today. The 
great idea in Eiffel was the ability to specify and test pre-conditions 
and post-conditions for the execution of methods. The Unit Tests in the 
modern Extreme Programming development style are essentially making up 
for the lack of this in other languages (including Self). I also stole 
their (Eiffel) parallelism model for tinySelf 1 :-)

>  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

That doesn't sound right - they were trying to aim for embedded 
devices. It seems unlikely that VisualWorks would have suited their 
needs. OTI's stuff would have been a better fit and they were likely to 
be more reasonable. Besides, didn't Sun already have Self by then? That 
was already a faster Smalltalk than what ParcPlace had...

-- Jecel