Re: LYNX-DEV extension languages for Lynx

[David Woolley]

> 
> REASON: because then the code can be reorganized
> into classes, and we can, at run time, load in
> whatever VERSION of a class we want, eg

The original CERN code on which Lynx was based was written in C++
but then ported to C for portability.   It's already very much class 
structured, and if anything this is one of the problems in maintaining
it; to maintain object oriented code you are either limited to changes
that are contained within a single object, or you find that the flow 
of control jumps around so much that you can't make any change without
spending a lot of time learning the structure of the program as a whole.

Actually, the only serious piece of freeware that I know of to be written
in an object language is Hylafax; it is too early, I think, to decide 
whether Jigsaw is a serious tool or a Java excercise.

Most well structured programs, however, do show some object oriented 
characteristics.

> I read on this mailing list that the code has really
> gotten hard to read, maybe a bit spagetti-like.

It's not spaghetti like the traditional sense of random flow of control
in a single module; it's spaghetti nature is, if anything, the consequence
of being two object oriented.