"Smalltalk for C programmers": Conclusions

Giovanni Giorgi giovanni.giorgi at mlab.disco.unimib.it
Fri Feb 11 09:08:59 UTC 2000


Ian Piumarta wrote:
> and now I'm
> saying it again.  But before the rant gets underway, C++ detractors
> should maybe try visiting Stroustrup's home page and reading some of
> his (rather good) short papers on the design philosophy behind C++,

You are right. I have read Stroustrup book (2nd ed.) and I think C++ was a good
idea for pushing OO in C.
C++ has all the concept needed by a good OO language (perheaps only Eiffel can
compete with the richness of C++)
The efforts for a stable STL are valuable.
Writing good software in C++ is possible and often needed.
But the problem is another: C/C++ is good for O.S. You can use it for application,
but the debug time for a * in the wrong place will crush a young programmer.
This is unacceptable in the year 2000, in my own opinion.

A good application-language should not have this problems or the costs for a big
project will be incredible high!!!
Small project can be written in C, but big ones will cost a lot!!
C++ has the *same* problems of C: the damned  cast  is broadly used by C
programmers when writing C++ code.
So type checking fly away, and your C++ code seems a 'nice formatted C code' only!

During the 1980-1993 PC was often slow, so you *had* to use C/C++ but now I have
read (in Byte magazine of a year ago) that Java is acceptable for most application
in the opinon of  some softwarehouse/businessman!!

If this is true, Smalltalk outperforms Java for code manintenance and perheaps
speed.

Florin X Mateoc wrote:

> If you are an experienced C programmer (and there are many out there)
> - you are working directly with the machine(s), so you already have some mental
> [..]I am sure the list goes on.
> Such a book would make  a very interesting read (it should be called "Smalltalk
> for hackers" though)

Thank you.
I am working to a preliminary draft, with a small introduction to OOP supposing
pepole has a vague idea of what is an object.

Stefan Matthias Aust wrote:
> The secret of success of languages like VisualBasic or Python is that
> people think these languages are easy because everybody tells them this.
> It doesn't matter whether it's true or not.  It's a kind-of self-fulfilling
> prophecy.  A psychology-thing IMHO.  Do it the same.
> [...]

Yes, this is especialy true for VisualBasic and Java.
If you are a teacher and watch a the concept you must push in a "young and
inexperienced student" you see a lot of language with too things to know for
working with it.

David T. Lewis wrote:
> [...] I am not trying to brag about how stupid I am,
> just to say that I think that many people with backgrounds in C get
> frustrated with their first exposure to Smalltalk, and most probably
> give up forever.
[...]
> C programmers expect to be able to write a "Hello World" right away,
> and to be able to do simple things like read and write files. It is
> completely pointless to try to convince someone that Smalltalk is
> wonderful when they can't even figure out how to do a "Hello world."
> They just end up feeling stupid and frustrated.

It's right again!!! some of my friends give up for these reasons.

Conclusion:

  1. I will post an announcement in the mailing list when a first acceptable draft
     will be ready.
  2. The title is unsure, but for the draft will be "Smalltalk for C programmers"
  3. The small paper will be focus-ed on pepole who know procedural languages (like
     Pascal, VB, Java, C/C++ ad so on)
  4. The Site where I will put the draft is
     http://neptune.sal.disco.unimib.it:8080/isug/

Thank you again for the discussion!!!
--
// Giovanni Giorgi           mailto:giovanni.giorgi at mlab.disco.unimib.it
// Master Thesis  at  http://neptune.sal.disco.unimib.it:8080/platone/1
// Student (& exTutor) at Depart. of Computer Science of Milan, Italy.
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