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From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: [Dis]Advantages of IF languages
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Tzvetan Mikov <ceco@jupiter.com> wrote:
>Conceptually it isn't any diferent than conventional object-oriented
>languages (instead of moving the behaviour into the "database", we move the
>"database" into the program - it is the same thing), but in conventional
>languages it would be cumbersome to describe the "database" in the program
>code. So, the advantage is one of syntax (unless I am entirely mistaken).

The other major issue is that most convention OO languages are
class-based, and do not allow you to attach methods to individual
objects. (E.g. Smalltalk, C++.) Since most objects in IF are
exceptional, you have to do clumsy define-a-class-for-each object
in each language. Again, you can argue that this is "just syntax",
but I think it shows a basic impedance mismatch between those
languages and IF--there *are* other languages that allow for
per-object methods (e.g. Self, which is prototype-based, not
class-based), and I don't think people normally say that these
language changes are just syntactic sugar.

SeanB
