Path: news.daimi.aau.dk!poe From: Albertina Lourenci Newsgroups: comp.lang.beta Subject: BETA Date: 19 Jul 1995 09:02:03 GMT Organization: DAIMI, Computer Science Dept. at Aarhus University Lines: 30 Approved: mailtonews@daimi.aau.dk Distribution: world Message-ID: <3uihmb$o9h@belfort.daimi.aau.dk> NNTP-Posting-Host: daimi.daimi.aau.dk Well, I am an architect and in 1988 I had the heavy task of implementing my ecodesign model. At the time in Brazil nobody has never heard of OOP| Even the CAD group from GSAUP UCLA believed Icould implement my model in Pascal and C. Then I checked it was impossible. Only by March 1989 I discovered that OOP existed, later on that it was born around 1940 (Kristen Nygaard's report|) Then I understood soon what it meant to program in C plus, plus... Then came Eiffel and then Sather I was accepted to the Ph.D. in Architecture and Urbanism to implement the ecodesign model in Sather (another choice would be CLOS). Yes but then I would have to implement everything in blackboard architecture and make a samba of OO software methodology| This was disgusting especially for my Brazilian adviser (an architect|) and the coadvisers from the artificial intelligence field found this was the solution. Then BETA appeared in the scene| And indeed its syntax fits the syntax of my ecodesign model| No need of blackboards, and so on. Of course there are lots of problems to be solved like how to integrate heterogeneous software like GIS and terrain modelling to my ecodesign model, but this is another story| So I think BETA is conceptually very powerful due to the pattern construct. Why people from the Mjolner BETA system insist on naming it class, I cannot understand. The class does not adjust to my highly abstract model but the pattern fits it perfectly| The latter is plastic while the former concept is rigid. The concurrency level is just terrific| And easy to understand. Before BETA I could not understand any paper about concurrency| I became very confused| Albertina Lourenci PH.D. student, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, University of Sao Paulo,Sao Paulo, Brazil email:Al at vmcisc.cisc.sc.usp.br