Hello Jonathan,

On Sep 21 05:06 94, Jonathan de Boyne Pollard of 2:440/4 wrote:

  >> You couldn't have studied very hard :-);  one of the big drawbacks of C++ 
  >> is that you almost always have to have the source to extend a class.

thats not true. just put your class into a DLL and _Export it. The client
just needs the header file.

 JdBP> Sometimes even in order to use it in the first place.  

ok. you must have the same compiler & compiler version ...

 JdBP> I'm wondering about the role of SOM in saving this particular flaw in 
 JdBP> C++.

I'm implementing everything in C++ and ship a SOM2 (IDL) interface. So, now
my code is compiler independent.

 JdBP> After all, if you (as a library vendor) give me a header file and a 
 JdBP> DLL, I can use, subclass, and generally mess about with your classes 
 JdBP> without the source, if they are SOM classes.

thats exactly as in C++. The real difference is the compiler idenpence of
SOM2. (AND of course, the language independence.)/
Mario

---