Path: news.daimi.aau.dk!news.uni-c.dk!newsfeed.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news99.sunet.se!nntp-trd.UNINETT.no!nntp.uio.no!news.cais.net!news.jsums.edu!gatech!cs.utk.edu!gaia.ns.utk.edu!mbk From: mbk@caffeine.engr.utk.edu (Matt Kennel) Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.beta,comp.lang.java,comp.lang.sather Subject: Re: What Should An Exception Handling Do? -- Clarification of rules Followup-To: comp.object,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.beta,comp.lang.java,comp.lang.sather Date: 8 Apr 1996 17:49:51 GMT Organization: University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Lines: 32 Message-ID: <4kbjjv$1i8@gaia.ns.utk.edu> References: <4irn11$7ln@mimas.brunel.ac.uk> <4jdv0p$lnr@dscomsa.desy.de> <3161961F.1FEE8722@ids2.idsonline.com> <4jvifo$h9c@hoho.quake.net> Reply-To: kennel@msr.epm.ornl.gov NNTP-Posting-Host: caffeine.engr.utk.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Xref: news.daimi.aau.dk comp.object:53896 comp.lang.eiffel:22697 comp.lang.c++:177387 comp.lang.beta:10713 comp.lang.java:32282 comp.lang.sather:12426 Bill Foote (billf@jovial.com) wrote: : Without method references, there's always the command pattern. : Making small, single-purpose classes like this really isn't that painful : in a language like Java (or Smalltalk, Eiffel, ...). I find that what : makes it painful in C++ is all the #include/Makefile nonsense I have to : go through, but this isn't really the fault of the language: it : could be fixed with the proper tools (i.e. a good IDE). Surely it *is* the fault of the language that it needs to be "fixed" by external tools. The fault being an adherence to an obsolete notion that only things "before" in character order in some processed file are knowable to the compiler and a linking model appropriate for Fortran 66. A '#define' or typedef in any included #include file can change the interpretation of random 'later' definitions or implementations. Or, suppose the last two characters of the #include file were "/*" ?? Those external tools would have to 'automagically' generate properly restricted #include files which only do sane things. You'd really be writing in a new langauge which has Ada or Eiffel style sane class definitions and then have all the actual .h files and #includes generated by your 'external' tool. : -- : Bill Foote | L'homme est né pour vivre dans les : billf@jovial.com | convulsions de l'inquiétude ou dans la : http://www.jovial.com/~billf/ | léthargie de l'ennui -- Voltaire