I fully agree. Too busy to write long email.

On dimanche, novembre 17, 2002, at 10:39  pm, Andreas.Raab at gmx.de wrote:

> Anthony,
>
>> 	I agree packages are useful for conceptualizing subsystems, but I 
>> will
>> argue that classes can serve this role as well.
>
> Sometimes they can, but (I think) only if they present a facade which 
> hides
> the intrinsic complexities of the stuff behind it. This is true for the
> compiler and some other subsystems but nor for all of them. Best 
> example:
> Collections.
>
>> 	In fact, I would organize classes into these levels instead of by 
>> equal
>> system categories.  Instead of having system categories and one system
>> dictionary, I would have classes hold other classes directly in their
>> class variables. Higher level classes would hold lower level classes
>> that they may use.  The class themselves would replace system
>> categories.  And each class would represent its own namespace 
>> consisting
>> of its class vars plus all its inherited class vars.
>
> *Way* too much complexity in a single place for my taste. By the end 
> of that
> scheme you would have lots of distinctive responsibilities merged into 
> a
> single place - namely that of being a class (describing instance 
> behavior), that
> of being a "utility belt" for methods(those two already get really
> confusing) and then also being a package and being a name space. 
> Without a way of
> getting a clear understanding what is what the result will be utter 
> chaos. And it
> doesn't even solve any of the packaging problems.
>
>> Remember, I am
>> assuming multiple inheritance, so some classes can serve as pool
>> dictionaries and be inherited by any class that wants to use that 
>> pool.
>
> And some classes can probably serve as coffee machines, and some as 
> hair
> dryers ;-)
>
>> 	Anyway with classes we don't even need the concept of packages,
>> and a subsystem can be represented by a class, or a small set of 
>> classes.
>
> And with objects we don't even need classes. That's not the point. The
> concept of packages is simply a useful one - similar to that of having 
> classes.
>
> Besides, I think that even if that scheme could be implemented (which 
> I have
> strong doubts about) I don't think very many people could grok it. 
> Might be
> worthwhile to consider.
>
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas
>
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>
>
Dr. Stéphane DUCASSE (ducasse at iam.unibe.ch) 
http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~ducasse/
  "if you knew today was your last day on earth, what would you do
  different? ... especially if, by doing something different, today
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