Kevin Fisher <kgf at golden.net> said:
>I've read the quote on smalltalk.org from Alan that (roughly paraphrased)
>says "I invented the term object-oriented, and C++ was not what I had in
>mind."
>
I think, apart from all the computer science stuff that has been invented to
talk about object orientation, it basically comes down to the fact that OO was
meant to make things simpler. C++ is a horrible complex mess - QED. 

>Is it safe to say that something like Python is not truly object-oriented?
>Or rather--if it's not objective right down to the smallest particle,
>can it be called object-oriented?  I realize this could be a somewhat
>flameworthy question...but I don't mean it to incite flames.  
>
It's a flameworthy question. Personally, I think that Python is object
oriented; and it is certainly striving to be more complete in that
respect, with Python 2.whateveristhelatestdotrelease you can inherit from
the built-in types. OO is not black-and-white, I claim to have written OO
software in VAX/Pascal. However, on the "OO-ness" scale, Smalltalk is a
top scorer (as is, I think CLOS), Python less so, Java a whole lot less,
and C++ waits until the language has been enhanced with an OO-ness scale
position operator.


-- 
Cees de Groot               http://www.cdegroot.com     <cg at cdegroot.com>
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