Interesting Language Search

Richard A. O'Keefe ok at atlas.otago.ac.nz
Wed Feb 13 01:45:37 UTC 2002


	"My boss gave me a set 
	of criteria which needs to be filled:
(1) intuitive and easy to use IDE; 
(2) simplified GUI design and event handling;
(3) advanced error handling; 
(4) advanced object oriented design including
(4a) multiple inheritance,
(4b) abstract classes,
(4c) and garbage collection;
(5) full support for operator and function overloading;
(6) and portable (at compile-time) across various platforms.
	I have already looked at C++, Java, C++, C#, Eiffel, and even VB.net;
	I may be missing something but as far as I can tell all of these
	languages are missing something from this list."

Squeak is of course missing (4a) and arguably (5).
It's not clear whether (3) means exceptions or the kind of error logging
and handling stuff required in telecoms software.
As for (1), that always seems to mean "I don't want to learn anything new."

To be perfectly honest, the only thing Eiffel is missing here is (5),
but most Eiffel programmers don't miss it.  (Mind you, what Betrand Meyer
thinks of under (3) is very different from C++ exceptions...)

Arguably O'CAML meets these requirements.

It seems to me as though this is a Pointy-Haired Boss who has culled a
shopping list from magazines.  Anyone who thinks garbage collection is
"advanced" is Not With It; Simula 67 had garbage collection.  I even wonder
if the real aim here was not "Ah HAH, so you can't find anything that meets
these requirements, so we SHALL use C++ after all...."



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