Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk
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From: fjh@munta.cs.mu.OZ.AU (Fergus Henderson)
Subject: Re: C++ vs Smalltalk?
Message-ID: <9529101.23007@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU>
Sender: news@cs.mu.OZ.AU (CS-Usenet)
Organization: Computer Science, University of Melbourne, Australia
References: <45j18l$5as@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> <27Fq42$04C@zoe.pcix.com> <45kuhd$qcn@fountain.mindlink.net> <rfenney-121095233315@rfenney.slip.netcom.com> <45lubm$102g@watnews2.watson.ibm.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 15:56:51 GMT
Lines: 21
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.c++:155031 comp.lang.smalltalk:29561

David N. Smith <dnsmith@watson.ibm.com> writes:

>If you're going to use C++, train people in
>Smalltalk first, not to get the language across, but to teach
>objects.  THEN, when they get to C++, they know what objects are.

I think that is an extremely bad idea.  The "right" way to program in
C++ is very different to the "right" way to program in Smalltalk.  If
you take a bunch of Smalltalk programmers and set them to work on C++,
they are likely to attempt to carry their Smalltalk idioms across to
C++, and they will then find out that C++ does not make a very good
Smalltalk.  Good use of C++ requires the use of a very different set
of idioms.

-- 
Fergus Henderson             	WWW: http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh
fjh@cs.mu.oz.au              	PGP: finger fjh@128.250.37.3
ObQuote: "... in general, safety is not very high on the lists of concerns
  of the [C++] committee members ... After all, if you want semantically
  safe languages that are fundamentally different from C, you don't have
  to look very far." -- Andrew Koenig, editor of the draft C++ standard.
