RE: [GD-General] Re: Simulating constrained genericity in C++

[Brian H. <bri...@py...>]

> Sure, but most people don't overload that many methods. Just stuff 
> like the operators and an occasional named method now and then.

I wouldn't quite say that.  The problem with C++ is that there's a
temptation to use everything, and unfortunately a lot of people do.
Real, true expert C++ practitioners that A.) understand the language;
B.) understand how to build frameworks; and C.) know what esoteric
features should NOT be used so as not to alienate their users are few
and far between.

> Yup. It's kind of funny. What has it been? 50 years that people have 
> been designing general purpose programming languages? And what have 
> language designers come to agreement on? Goto's are bad? Even garbage 
> collection still has a bad reputation in many places...

Well, high level languages also had a bad reputation for a long time.
Crap, in my lifetime there were arguments over function pointers vs.
direct calls and how this would slow things down intolerably.

> Yeah, I really need to look into Cocoa. I'm a bit put off though 
> because it seems to be much more C-like than C++ if that makes any 
> sense. :-)

Obj-C, to me, is far more object oriented than C++.  Well, that's not
necessarily true, since that's open to interpretation.  I WILL say it's
a lot cleaner and more expressive for the stuff that I want to do.  You
can learn Obj-C in a day.  It's that simple.  And yet it still feels
more powerful than C++ because it just ditches the dogma of "static type
checking rules all" and says "screw it, we're doing this dynamically,
deal".  Lack of GC is my number one complaint, followed by its lack of
popularity.  Support by GCC is a pretty big benefit however, and it can
seamlessly work with C and C++ code these days, which is HUGE when
compared to other language's interface to C (Java is probably the most
pleasant, but even then, it's a mess).

There's a free PDF on Obj-C at Apple's Web site (developer.apple.com).
I really can't recommend it highly enough.  Add in Cocoa, which are a
gloriously beautiful set of frameworks (GUI and otherwise), and it's a
slam dunk.

Too bad about that whole PowerMac thing though. *sigh*

Brian