HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tims@bcarh680.bnr.ca (Tim Spurway)
Subject: Re: Information about CALICO
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 19:22:33 GMT

In article <1992Dec10.180500.11407@randr.com> mf024@randr.com ( Mei Fu	) writes:
>Hi, 
>
>I'm looking for information about CALICO which is a new C-based, object-
>oriented programming language developed by AT&T.  Can anyone give me any
>information of this product?
>
Oh no, not ANOTHER one ...

Tim Spurway
Bell Northern Research
tims@bnr.ca
From: philbo@arasta.uucp (Phillip Lindsay)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: Chemical Engineering
Keywords: engineering
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 92 22:52:44 PST
Distribution: world
Organization: Phillip Lindsay, Tustin CA

mike@pmafire.inel.gov (Mike Caldwell) writes:
...quoted stuff deleted....
>
> Most problems in chemical engineering don't take experts in computer
> science to solve them.  An expert in computer science, may find a more
> effecient solution, given enough time to search for them.  But there
> really isn't enough time to search for them and 99.9% of the time we
> don't won't an efficient answer, we  just want the answer, any way we
> can get it.
>
> There are a lot of engineers (not just chemical) that would Know if
> fuzzy logic was applicable, or neural nets, or OODBMS.  Having taught
> a lot of computer science graduates to program over the last ten
> years, having a degree in computer science doesn't mean they can
> program.  If we are lucky, it means we can teach them to program.  And
Having ChE degree does not mean you can be an effective programmer or ChE!

> I'll be the first to admit that if I need a better hashing alogorithm,
> I'll look up one of the CS students I taught to program.
>
Hashing? Why not ask about new concepts in parallelism or the adaption of
virtual reality for ChE?
> Actually, I try to get management to hire more CS students.  A program
> like this one that requires a lot of ChE work and a lot of programming
> benefits from a good mix of personnel.  But mixing personnel isn't
> easy.  Since this is a chemical plant, there are a lot more
> advancement opportunities for ChE than there will ever be for
> programmers, and we have very little work for the science side of CS.
> In the ten years I've been programming and doing ChE work, we have
> managed to keep only one programmer for more than three years ( a
> second one is getting close).  And we haven't lost a single ChE yet.
> A lot has to do with geography.  The work site is 50 miles from town
> and a lot has to due with the job market.  When the CS people get
> tired of working here (i.e. trained), they have an easy time getting a
> more convient job.  But ChE do get the job done.  The programs get
> written, the code works, and we get the answers we need.  And the
> bottom line, thats all that management cares about.
>
> Mike
>
>
> --
> Mike Caldwell (mike@pmafire.inel.gov or mike@inel.gov)
> Paths: ...uunet!pmafire!mike

Unless you think the technology curve has flattened and is going down
you cannot assume that Chemical Engineering can conquer future technology
growth alone.  As we all know, breakthroughs in the sciences
happen through collaboration of different sciences. Chemical Engineering
is no different.

--
Phillip Lindsay "Government for the Politicians for Japan."
INTERNET: 75230.300@compuserve.com ** UUCP: uunet!zardox!dhw68k!arasta!philbo
Phone: 714-385-2311 ** USMAIL: 2955 Champion Way, #175, Tustin, Ca. 92680
Newsgroups: comp.object,comp.client-server,comp.parallel
From: tollefson@uservx.plk.af.mil
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Need basic OO information
Date: 11 Dec 92 12:54:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: uservx.1992Dec11.125457.36573
Organization: Phillips Laboratory - Kirtland AFB

Hi,

     I was away from programming (doing management, yuk) during the time
when object-oriented programming became popular.  Now, as I move closer
to programming again, I need to quickly gain an understanding of what
object-oriented programming really has to offer.

     I'm looking for a good book (or E-mail replies) which can help me to
understand some basics:

      1)  What are the basic benefits?  (why use it over traditional)
      2)  How does it work, very generally.  (the only examples I've seen
          have been complex theoretical nightmares or simple contrived
          situations easily handled by conventional code.)
      3)  How do you tell when to use it and when to avoid it for
          specific programs?
      4)  Can old dogs learn new tricks?  (how hard is it for a programmer
          to convert his thinking)

     A description of a case where the programming became much easier or
the end product became much better would be very helpful.  I'm not looking
for source code, but some textual information on how the new scheme helped.

     Thank you in advance for any help you can give me.  If others have the
same question, I'll compile the answers so I can E-mail them to you ...
just let me know.

                                        Thanks,
                                          Mark

TOLLEFSON@misvax.plk.af.mil
Newsgroups: comp.object
From: tweaver@hobbes.kzoo.edu (Tim Weaver)
Subject: FAQ, what's the big secret?
Organization: Kalamazoo College
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 13:22:55 GMT

So far I've seen two requests for the location of FAQ files (one of them
my own) and no answers.  Should I conclude that such an animal doesn't
exist for this group, or is it just a secret?
-- 

|Timothy E. Weaver           | Kalamazoo College  |  (616) 337-7323        |
|Database Programmer/Analyst | 1200 Academy       | These are MY opinions! |
|email:  tweaver@kzoo.edu    | Kalamazoo MI 49006 | Mine!!  Mine!!  Mine!! |
Newsgroups: comp.object
From: thinman@netcom.com (Technically Sweet)
Subject: Re: Is Borland the leader in technology?
Organization: International Foundation for Internal Freedom
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 21:16:23 GMT

"Jon C. R. Bennett" <jb7m+@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:


>because these days you need a computer to do chemical engineering, you
>dont need chemicals to do computer science (unless you count caffine), but
>in two courses the most that you can do is teach someone to be dangerous,
>you cant teach them computer science. Look at it this way, if I took 2
>chemical engineering courses, would you think I could do chemical
>engineering? no, so why do you think 2 CS courses means that a Chemical
>Engineer can do Computer Science?

Yes, everyone with a Computer Science (TM) degree is automatically
a Computer Scientist (TM even more).  We all push back the frontiers
of Computer Science (oh forget it) and publish papers.  Yup!

With two semesters of Lisp or Smalltalk, you can teach a Chemical 
Engineer (TM) to write a chemical factory simulation, and use it 
to find problems.  With two semesters of Fortran, she can also learn 
how to find prime numbers!

-- 

Lance Norskog

Data is not information is not knowledge is not wisdom.
Newsgroups: comp.object
From: sakkinen@jyu.fi (Markku Sakkinen)
Subject: Relationships (Was: Re: Object hidden state and side effects)
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 06:56:09 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.014420.6604@midway.uchicago.edu> dave@alex.uchicago.edu (Dave Griffith) writes:

> [a lot deleted]

>A more extreme example, and one that I'm working on in my language, is 
>inter-object relationships.  There is no _direct_ way in current object-oriented
>languages to say "object A stands in relation B to object C".  There are
>any number of _indirect_ ways of saying this.  A may be an instance variable
>of C, C may be an instance variable of A, the pair (A, C) may be in some
>dictionary B, etc. ad infinitum.  Things get even more complex if relations of
>arity other than two are allowed, if relations may be many-to-many, if
>constraints on relations hold.  All of these may be modelled by current 
>languages, but none has direct support for the concept "relation".  As such,

> [the rest deleted]

This was only a side issue in the article, but Rumbaugh et al.'s DSM
does support relation(ship)s, although only binary ones.
See e.g. papers at OOPSLA '87, '88 and '89.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Markku Sakkinen (sakkinen@jytko.jyu.fi)
       SAKKINEN@FINJYU.bitnet (alternative network address)
Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
University of Jyvaskyla (a's with umlauts)
PL 35
SF-40351 Jyvaskyla (umlauts again)
Finland
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.object
From: knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan Knight)
Subject: Re: Object hidden state and side effects
Reply-To: knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan Knight)
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 03:57:59 GMT

In <Bz5ruB.5Mw@newsflash.concordia.ca> grogono@cs.concordia.ca (Peter Grogono) writes:

>I completely agree with Chuck's analysis, but I would like to
>add my 2 bits' worth.

Are you sure that you agree with him?  I agree with everything you
wrote, and I don't agree with Chuck, and I have a feeling agreement
should be commutative.

-- 
 Alan Knight  knight@mrco.carleton.ca  +1 613 788 2600x1027 
 Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering              
 Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1S 5B6      

Newsgroups: comp.object
From: knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan Knight)
Subject: Re: Object hidden state and side effects
Reply-To: knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan Knight)
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 21:21:39 GMT

In <BzF7tn.22C@inews.Intel.COM> bongalon@tcad05.intel.com (Ben Bongalon) writes:
>In article <knight.724558491@cunews>, knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan
>Knight) writes:
>|> However, what does identity mean for a value. If you tell a
>|> mathematician that two imaginary numbers are identical iff they are
>|> equal she will probably ask you what identity means?

>Here's an example:

>  1 + 2i  ==   (3-2) + (6/3)i  ==  1 + 2(i^5)

>  they all evaluate to the same value and can be normalized into
>  a unique representation.  thus, all 3 expressions are equal
>  (identical).  how can one get multiple copies?

This seems like an excellent example of what I was talking about. You
apparently do not disintguish between identity and equality for
complex numbers.  If my representation of complex numbers was, for
example, strings, then "1+2i" and "1+2(i^5)" are not in any normal
sense identical, but they are equal.

If I, as a user, type in these two expressions on the keyboard, I
would expect to get separate instances of complex numbers (i.e.
multiple copies) of equal values. The only way of avoiding this is to
have some kind of mechanism that checks for the existence of a value
equal to the one typed in and substitutes it.


-- 
 Alan Knight  knight@mrco.carleton.ca  +1 613 788 2600x1027 
 Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering              
 Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1S 5B6
From: jeff@is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Jeff McAffer)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: Object hidden state and side effects
Date: 17 Dec 92 16:52:21 GMT
    <1992Dec13.152136.16852@hasler.ascom.ch> <1992Dec14.175402.1889@crd.ge.com> 
    <1992Dec15.143243.16256@heeg.de> <1992Dec15.224536.13554@crd.ge.com>
Reply-To: jeff@is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Organization: University of Tokyo, tcejorP Project.

In article <1992Dec15.224536.13554@crd.ge.com> eaker@ukulele.crd.ge.com (Chuck Eaker) writes:

 >updates. But, we would not need to update the list of integers
 >or the list of colors unless we chose a bizarre way to represent
 >them or unless we chose, for efficiency reasons to not implement
 >all the integers and colors that actually exist. The color
 >green is eternal and immutable. Green things are not.
 >Representations of the color green are not.

Although we do seem to be wandering a bit (to say the least)...

I guarantee you that your green is not the same as my green.
Therefore, green is not immutable.  Your green is immutable, my green
is immutable.  They are not equal and every once and a while, I change
mine.  The only thing that is eternal and immutable about colors is
their frequency and perhaps that is not even true.

back to good and bad.  What if I assign good to an attribute.  Then it
becomes, in the surrounding context, bad' to be good and good' to be
bad (' used to prevent cicularity).  Should the attribute now be bad'?
That is, should good be mutated to bad' (ditto for bad)?  I don't
know.

--
--
ato de, |m        -- Santa or Satan?  Think about it.
Newsgroups: comp.object
From: Bob Hathaway <objsys@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Need basic OO information
Organization: Object Systems
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 04:29:19 GMT

In article <1377@se.alcbel.be> cgra@btma74.nohost.nodomain () writes:
>...
>OK you guys - flood me with brilliant examples of OOA/D/P that I can feed
>back to teacher.  Fire me with enthusiasm, and convert me (and just about
>everyone I know) from cynical doubter to blazing apostle!

You sound like a real champion but I think there's a good reason for
the lack of real-world examples.

This reminds me of surveys showing tools for Ada aren't being used;
they are but the results aren't usually published because Ada is
primarily used by the military (in classified projects) and for
security reasons many developers aren't allowed to respond to surveys
or even to access newsgroups, let alone reply to them!

In the same way, many developers won't/can't discuss the proprietary
projects they're working on.  But any good teacher can start projects or
create relevant examples to allow students to construct a good model of
understanding.  Perhaps if a few good employers loosened up a bit with their
sources and published some books (there's probably a few already out there)
using their software as a base more "real-world" examples would be publicly
available; its not that there's any lack of them.

Any adventurous CEO's willing to let the world learn from their
successful and high-quality object-oriented software-engineering/research
endeavors?  Would make a great book...

Just my 2c worth,
bob
objsys@netcom.com
Newsgroups: comp.object
From: knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan Knight)
Subject: Re: Object hidden state and side effects
Reply-To: knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan Knight)
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 02:11:34 GMT

In <1992Dec20.155809.14236@midway.uchicago.edu> dave@alex.uchicago.edu (Dave Griffith) writes:

>I've never said anything about bitwise comparison.  Equality on values might
>certainly be user defined.  Even in these cases it should have restrictions,
>e.g. it should be symmetric, reflexive, transitive, and substitutabilty of 
>equals for equals should hold in all cases.

As I pointed out in an earlier posting, equality for IEEE standard
floating point numbers is not reflexive (NaN != Nan). It may well be
possible to come up with violations of other properties.

> Equality on objects would 
>be identity.

I continue to find this totally unacceptable. I define objects with
user-specified equality conditions all the time, and I mean objects in
your sense, having mutable state.

-- 
 Alan Knight  knight@mrco.carleton.ca  +1 613 788 2600x1027 
 Dept. of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering              
 Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1S 5B6      

Newsgroups: comp.object
From: hasko@heeg.de (Hasko Heinecke)
Subject: Re: Object hidden state and side effects
Organization: Georg Heeg Objektorientierte Systeme, Dortmund, FRG
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 15:58:09 GMT

In article <BzC05w.2xA@newsflash.concordia.ca> grogono@cs.concordia.ca (Peter Grogono) writes:
>In article <1992Dec15.224536.13554@crd.ge.com> eaker@ukulele.crd.ge.com (Chuck Eaker) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec15.143243.16256@heeg.de>, hasko@heeg.de (Hasko Heinecke) writes:
>>|> In article <1992Dec14.175402.1889@crd.ge.com> eaker@ukulele.crd.ge.com (Chuck Eaker) writes:
>>|> >The point is that computers cannot use "the *real* 3/4."
>>|> 
>>|> You wanted philosophy, so here it is: What *is* the real 3/4. What would
>>|> Immanuel Kant say?
>>
>>I'm sure Kant and other philosophers would agree that 3/4 is a rational
>>number, and that whatever the nature of its existence, there is only
>>one such number, it cannot be created, destroyed, copied, or changed
>>in any way. Unlike philosophers, we don't have to worry about "realms"
>> ............
>
>I suggest we all go and re-read \cite{Whitehead:1910} and then resume 
>the conversation.
>
>@book{Whitehead:1910
>         author = "A.N. Whitehead and B. Russell",
>         title = "Principia Mathematica",
>         publisher = "Cambridge University Press",
>         date = "1910--13"}

And after that Goedel's famous article where he stated that all non-trivial
mathematical systems are inconsistent, i.e. there exist true statements that
cannot be proven, and that there are false statements whose negation cannot
be proven. I can look up the data for this article, or just read Goedel,
Escher, Bach by D. Hofstaedter.

After this, read Turing's stuff, who prove that you can't even find out which
statements are undecidable.

Summary: Don't rely to much in number theory, it breaks down just like
marriages... :-)

Hasko Heinecke

-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Hasko Heinecke @ Georg Heeg Objektorientierte Systeme |
| I _never_ mean what I say - and nobody else does...   |
+-------------------------------------------------------+
From: bongalon@tcad05.intel.com (Ben Bongalon)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: Object hidden state and side effects
Date: 15 Dec 92 18:15:20 GMT
Reply-To: bongalon@tcad05.intel.com (Ben Bongalon)
Organization: Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA USA


In article <1992Dec15.014420.6604@midway.uchicago.edu>,
dave@alex.uchicago.edu (Dave Griffith) writes:

|> Actually, immutability is only a small part of being a value.  The important
|> part is lack of identity.  All '3's are the same, regardless of their
history.
|> On the other hand, standard objects are only equal if they are identical.
|> Immutability is necessary for values, but not sufficient.

Actually, it depends on how you look at it.  Are "all" 3's referring
to several identical copies of that value or to one universally
accessable value?  Not only is he latter a plausible answer but
I believe it is a better model.

Frankly I don't understand all the confusion about the distinction
between objects and values.  As i see it, an object may have internal states; 
more specifically, an object may contain other objects, which 
may in turn be composite (ie, contain other objects) or simple
(ie, just contains values).  But note that simple and composite
objects are merely concepts in our minds.  In order to apply them
to computer programming, we map these objects into variables.

The primitive objects are the
variables in a program that are defined with primitive data types
(ie, int i, float x, char c    <--- i,x & c are primitive objects).
Composite objects are the variables in a program that are outside
the set of primitive objects.

An object can be ultimately decomposed into its primitive object 
constituents, and these primitive objects get _values_ assigned to them.
Thus, the disctinction between objects (variables) and values
(literals) is clear.  Objects get values assigned to their data
members.  Object X = Object Y  actually means that the values of
the data members of Y get assigned to the corresponding data members
of X.


Ben Bongalon
Intel Corporation
From: cgra@btma74.nohost.nodomain
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Re: Need basic OO information
Date: 17 Dec 92 13:20:46 GMT
Reply-To: cgra@btma74.nohost.nodomain ()


Not an answer, but a me-too-please.

Yesterday evening I attended an "Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis"
provided by our training department.  The lecturer started by apologising
for the lack of concrete examples in her presentation - she had been unable
to find anything in the literature beyond the old schoolbook of examples of
closed-curve/polygon/ellipse... and "a zebra is a horse, but black with white
stripes" (plus you can't ride it, quipped I).

What she would really have liked was examples of practical design problems
which were demonstrably better tackled using OOA, or of real systems which
had benifited from the application of OOA.  She hadn't found any.

This is very strange.  Are we to conclude...

- that in 10 years or so of OO analysis, design, and programming not one
wothwhile practical example has emerged?

- or that the OO community are so unskilled in the art of self-advertisement
that shining examples of OOA are going unreported?

- or that organisations using OOA are achieving such brilliant results that
they are concealing the fact in order to retain the competitive advantage
this wins them?

OK you guys - flood me with brilliant examples of OOA/D/P that I can feed
back to teacher.  Fire me with enthusiasm, and convert me (and just about
everyone I know) from cynical doubter to blazing apostle!

Then maybe I'll bother attending the next session - "Introduction to 
Object-Oriented Design"...              ;->

Merry Xmas all,

Chris             cgra@se.alcbel.br
____________________________________________________________________________
All opinions expressed are those of the author, and are unlikely to coincide
with the official policy of Alcatel or any other such organisation.
Nothing in this message should be taken to imply that Alcatel are anything
less than totally committed to the application of OO principles, as to make
such an insinuation would be a negative career move of some magnitude.
From: jgs@funsys.se (Jan Gifvars)
Newsgroups: comp.object
Subject: Gemstone
Keywords: Gemstone
Date: 14 Dec 92 12:42:59 GMT
Reply-To: jgs@funsys.se
Organization: Enator Functional Systems AB.


Has anyone used Gemstone together with Smalltalk-80 or Smalltalk/V ?
Jan Gifvars
jgs@funsys.se