Re: C++ & gnome (was: Re: opening Gnome to multiple (windowing) systems)

[tiggr gerbil org (Pieter Schoenmakers)]

   From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@nuclecu.unam.mx>
   Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1998 16:17:10 -0500

[I tried to stay out of this.]

   > C++ has nothing that SmallTalk, Simula and other languages have.

There are plenty of things that C++ does not have.  Even though it is
bloated, there is still enough room for growth :-)

   No wonder the Netscape people avoid so many C++ features to get
   portable code.

Of the two experienced C++ programmers I personally know (and whose
opinion I value), one would not want to touch C++ on a project with >1
programmer and the other works on a project where the use of any feature
introduced in C++ after something like 1992 is prohibited.  Says enough.

   I still think that raising the programming level is the right approach
   in this context.

I agree.

<obtopic>
It's a pitty that Gdk/Gtk do reference counting.  It is even more a pitty
that the Gdk objects (and some of the Gtk objects) do not have some common
superclass, like GtkObject is for a lot of Gtk classes.  Now there are 12
different *_ref functions, to name but one deficiency.  Looks like there
are some candidates here for raising the abstraction level of the
functionality offered by Gtk/Gdk.
</obtopic>

It has already happened at least once that I had to resist the urge to
rewrite the OO-stuff of Gtk in TOM, with the purpose of making Gtk a
wrapper around TOM/Gtk :-)

   Java is basically ObjectPascal with C syntax.

I always describe Java as a semantic subset of Objective-C with C++ syntax
:-)  --Tiggr