> (There is an even deeper argument that the OO
> paradigm doesn't work too well for value/operator based problems. Hence
> the need for a variety of tricks like double-dispatching in Smalltalk's handling
> of numbers -- which leave me with the impression that they are addressing
> symptoms of an underlying problem rather than the problem itself.
There's no problem with the OO paradigm, just the problem that C++ and Smalltalk
do not implement multimethods. A multimethod, in C++ parlance, is one that
allows arguments other than the first to affect run-time dispatch.
(See Stroustrup's *Design and Evoluation of C++* book for a discussion.)
Unfortunately, there seems to be no efficient way to implement multimethods
without whole-program analysis, hence it tends to be left out of all but
a few OO languages.
Arch D. Robison Kuck & Associates Inc.
robison@kai.com 1906 Fox Drive
217-356-2288 ext. 56 Champaign IL 61820
Lead Developer for KAI C++ http://www.kai.com/C_plus_plus/index.html
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Feb 20 2002 - 03:20:09 EST