Just to clarify, the observation was about "Generic Programming" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_programming ) - not generics in the VHDL sense, although they have a facilitating role. I said something along the lines of "I'm not sure I really want OOP, based on recent experience I'm leaning towards GP".
A little background on my software experiences: I've written low-level C code since ever, and I've been doing various kinds of OOP for a number of years in Python and recently in C++. Very recently I've been learning the C++ Standard Template Library, of which I like the concept - the *lack* of objects turned out to be a breath of fresh air! (but some of the irritations in using it cause me daily aggravation!) And just this week, I read an interview with one of the key designers of STL (Alexander Stepanov).
http://www.stlport.org/resources/StepanovUSA.html
I should point out, he's pretty disparaging about OOP - and he's very into generic programming as you might imagine :) I haven't fully digested the interview and it's implications myself, but it felt as I was reading it that I *should*. (I'm also well aware this could just be the allure of new-shiny knowledge, so I'd welcome other's thoughts!)
Anyway, I throw it in as food for thought!
Jim's point about examples of "when do we *need* OOP" is excellent, as we may be able to look at them in other ways and find better solutions (ideally with features we can more easily add... I discovered yesterday that certain simulators still can't do parts of VHDL2008 that I want them to!).
And if not, we'll have a solid justification for adding OO features... even if we have to wait ages!
Cheers,
Martin
-- Martin Thompson CEng MIET TRW Conekt, Stratford Road, Solihull, B90 4GW. UK +44 (0)121-627-3569 : martin.j.thompson@trw.com http://www.conekt.co.uk/ Conekt is a trading division of TRW Limited Registered in England, No. 872948 Registered Office Address: Stratford Road, Solihull B90 4AX -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.Received on Fri Mar 18 01:56:26 2011
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Fri Mar 18 2011 - 01:56:55 PDT