Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ncar!gatech!hubcap!billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu
From: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe,2847,)
Newsgroups: comp.sw.components
Subject: Re: Inheritance vs. component efficiency
Message-ID: <6254@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 12 Aug 89 23:06:42 GMT
References: <130200005@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@hubcap.clemson.edu
Reply-To: billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu
Lines: 26

From article <130200005@p.cs.uiuc.edu>, by johnson@p.cs.uiuc.edu:
> [repost of an old article]

   I think we've pretty well beaten this topic to death in this
   newsgroup, and I see no point in reposting OLD articles to which
   I have already responded.  There was a followup to my reply which
   I should have responded to, but did not, so I'll go ahead and cover
   it now: I mentioned that the situation which Ralph cited as one 
   in which run-time binding was appropriate was one in which tasking
   would be sufficient, and Ralph said that this was overkill.  But
   Ralph assumes a lot about how the multitasking will be implemented,
   which is entirely inappropriate.  Hilfinger and others have done
   work on compiler technology which automatically converts certain
   Ada multitasking situations into systems which perform equivalently
   with fewer threads of control.  Ralph also assumes that task creation
   will be a high-overhead situation; however, this is a characteristic
   of certain *operating systems*, not a characteristic of Ada.  Work is
   also being done on "Ada engines", systems which are specifically
   designed to, among other things, provide the support for lightweight 
   processes that is appropriate for an Ada environment.  

   I will have more to contribute on this topic when I return from the 
   Tri-Ada '89 conference, at which reuse is going to be a major topic.


   Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu