Why isn TINA written in C++?
We have considered this issue for a number of years and would have re-written Tina if we thought we would gain anything useful. We were once told by a C++ fan (who has never programmed in C) that we had written the software correctly but in the wrong language. High praise indeed! Various students have used C++ compiled with Tina during their work. We have found that the skills needed for machine vision research rarely intersect with those for C++ programming. In addition the capabilities of C++ rarely intersect with the requirements of flexible code development. It is much easier to understand software which separates data structures and algorithms. Destructor/constructor capabilities can be duplicated by careful design of data structures and support functions. File I/O is more reliably handled with user accessible code (see serialise). Object oriented programming is best kept to a minimum for genuine code reuse and clarity, C++ overly proliferates this style. C fits better on hardware
