[Shootout-list] Re: OO (was Re: process creation & message passing)

[Brent Fulgham]

--- Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> > > It is not fine.  There is no such widespread OO
> > > system for C.  The overwhelming majority of 
> > > people do not use C this way.

--- I wrote:
> > The GTK toolkit uses exactly this model.  They
> > wrote their own object hierarchy in C.

--- Brandon again:
> I'll repeat: the overwhelming majority of people do
> not use C this way.  Compared to all C users, GTK is

> a little teeny tiny blip on the radar.

Another domain would be embedded systems, where C++
or Java is not often an option.  There have been
many projects done in this domain using C, with an
OO hierarchy implemented to help with code reuse.

> There's a difference between an OO widget API and an

> OO *language*.  OO widget APIs only facilitate the 
> writing of additional widgets.  I'm using the
> word 'facilitate' quite generously here.

No -- you are making the common mistake of assuming
there is any fundamental difference between languages
and libraries.  They are equivalent.  A library can
graft a new language onto an existing "language".

I disagree that a C entry with an object system is of
no interest, and I have shown at least two real-world
cases where people have had to solve this problem.  I
think the shootout benefits from having a metric that
indicates how well this approach works (in terms of
the trade-off of performance versus LOC).

> Well, your view is quite a minority view.  Almost
> nobody else out there is having a debate about 
> whether C is an OO language or not.

And I'm not either.  I agree that C is not an OO
language; I'm just saying that OO techniques can be
used in it; and that even a whole OO "language" can
be provided as a library.  Does this compete with
C++ or Objective C?  Yes -- this is exactly how those
languages were originally implemented.  And in certain
domains, OO add-ons to C are still used.

I'd like the shootout to be able to help someone show 
his boss "Hey, C++ is way better than our crufty C OO
library because it's half the LOC to maintain, or it's

only 0.5% slower on these types of problems, so let's
use it".

> What do you see as the goal for the shootout? 
> Trying anything and everything, no matter how brain 
> dead?

Of course not.

> I'm getting tired of all the various goals,
> honestly.  I don't really believe that anyone's
going
> to put any energy at all into *my* goals.

Why would you expect anyone to put energy into
your goals, when you haven't put any energy there
yourself?  Lead by example, man!

> It's time for me to bow out of this project /
> discussion.

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way.  While I don't
agree with all of your goals, the discussion has
been beneficial (at least to me) in crystallizing
various aspects of the shootout.

-Brent