🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4ku8rq$pav@cubenx.cube.de> hhoff@cube.de (Holger Hoffstaette) writes:

>William D. Gooch wrote:
>> 
>> Gosh, hasn't this been discussed enough before?  MI has 
>> great value when used appropriately.  Added complexity 
>> and indirection in instance structures or redundant code 
>> are essentially the only ways to compensate for its lack. 

>Yeah, it's also a great way of preventing you from fixing third-party
>classes that are Broken By Design(tm).

What do you mean by "preventing?"  MI is an added 
capability, and prevents nothing that I can think of.

>Some of us have *real* protocols & forwarding, and get by great without
>unnecessary code bloat or weirdo design. MI - thanks, but: No Thanks!

Certainly you are free to not use MI, whether or not the 
language supports it.  In my experience, properly used 
MI helps in avoiding "code bloat," as I pointed out before.
"Forwarding" (delegation) is an example of the indirection 
I was referring to, and what you mean by "*real* protocols"
is not at all clear.  (Apparently this is something that can't 
be accomplished in a language which supports multiple 
inheritance?  Very interesting.)

You'll need to define "weirdo design" (is that a technical 
term?) before I can respond to that part.

Truly folks, I had no intention of starting a flamefest here.
I am at a complete loss to understand the vehemence with 
which some people appear to dislike multiple inheritance.
My experience with it has been quite good (and I have also
learned to do fine without it, since I am currently working 
in Smalltalk).  If there is something substantive behind this 
very emotional reaction, it has yet to become clear to me.
If someone can explain this in terms other than "many
people use MI badly," I would really appreciate it.

I do think there's a serious lack of adequate instruction on 
the proper use of MI.  Perhaps this can be rectified.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
William D. Gooch
RothWell International
goochb@rwi.com
Texas liaison for the International Programmers Guild
For information on IPG, see http://www.ipgnet.com/ipghome.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~