Subject: CCL:Object-oriented means for computational chemist

From: "Ping Du" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 1997 07:45:08 +0000

Hi,

I found the discussions on OO programming very useful!  However, 
there is a point that I would like to bring up.  That is, is it 
possible to implement an OO design using a non-OO language?  The main 
design features of OOD are abstraction, encapsulation, and 
inheritance.  One may achieve abstraction and encapsulation in a 
non-OO language by forcing discipline.  For example, use struct in C 
as if there were classes and access data members through "interface" 
functions.  However, implementing inheritance is impossible without 
an OO language.  Inheritance is pobably the most important feature of 
OO design if you would like your program to be extensible and 
reusable.
 
> > One can DESIGN software based on these principles (OOD) regardless of
> > what language the software is to be implemented in.
> 
> Right. But implementing an OO design in a non-OO language requires
> a lot of experience and discipline - to be expected of a professional
> programmer, but not of a programming scientist.

Ping Du
Synaptic Pharmaceutical

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Ping Du, PhD
Senior Scientist, Computational Chemistry   Email: [email-masked]
Synaptic Pharmaceutical Corporation         Tel: (201) 261-1331x642
215 College Road, Paramus, NJ 07652         Fax: (201) 261-0623
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