Selling LISP & CLOS to non-believers.

[Bruce Lester <72110.1107@CompuServe.COM>]

I recently attended a forum on the subject of object-oriented programming 
which was presented to the technical analysts in my company.  

The individual making the presentation was one of the co-founders of Itasca 
systems (an object-oriented database vendor/developer).

The presentation was a general overview of object-oriented programming and why
M.I.S. organizations should begin making use of this technology.  Most of 
those attending the presentation were interested in learning more about 
object-oriented programming and asked for recommendations on specific 
languages and products.

The person making the presentation made no specific recommendations but 
mentioned C++, Smalltalk, CLOS, and one or two integrated systems.  He also 
said that there is a tendency on the part of C programmers to use C++ as a 
better C compiler and to fail to actually use it's object-oriented 
capabilities.

I would like to put in a good word for CLOS over C++ and Smalltalk but have 
only used CLOS and therefore have no personal experience to make a comparison 
with other object-oriented languages.  I am also not an expert in CLOS having 
only recently studied Sonya Keene's book "Object-Oriented Programming in 
COMMON LISP".

The majority of the programmers and analysts in our M.I.S. organization are 
familiar with either C or COBOL.

I use MCL 2.0 and understand that Franz is close to releasing a LISP 
development enviornment for Microsoft Windows (for around $ 600).

I would like to write a one page high-level comparison of the leading 
object-oriented languages.  Does anyone have any suggestions?

I would also like to quote someone (pro-CLOS of course) with a fancy title.

Bruce Lester
Pillsbury
Minneapolis, Minnesota