NetNews Offline 2/NetNews Offline Volume 2.iso/news/comp/lang/c++-part2/12996

Internet Message Format | 1996-08-05 | 3.6 KB

Path: keats.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca!not-for-mail
From: [e-mail] (Kazimir Kylheku)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.c++,comp.object,comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Beware of "C" Hackers -- A rebuttal to Bertrand Meyer
Date: 22 Mar 1996 14:20:19 -0800
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: keats.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca

In article <[e-mail]>,
John Maling <[e-mail]> wrote:
 >Up until a couple of months ago, OOD&P remained a curious mystery to me.
 >My logic centres were set way deep for structured programming. People
 >preaching OOD&P as 'THE WAY' left me stone cold- I thought it just another
 >language bigotry thing.
 >
 >However, since then I have 'seen the light'. OOP is indeed The Way (at
 >least until something better is created). I was converted by <free plug
 >time> Robert Martins book, 'Designing Object-Oriented C++ Applications
 >using the Booch method.' I had periodically read books on OOD and always
 >missed the point, but Martins book lit my head up like a Christmas tree. I
 >had one of those 'Ahhhh!' experiences. Quite literally, I woke up sleepily
 >one early morning- sat on the edge of the bed, and suddenly the whole
 >concept of what makes OOD so good just hit me. Any parent of a newborn
 >whose baby cries in the night knows well the effect of being transformed
 >from sleep to hyper-alertness in a split second. It is not a pleasent
 >sensation. Nevertheless that was the effect on me when OOD principles
 >finaly clicked for me.

I understand OOD: I see the technical advantages, but not the practical
advantages. I'm not on a holy grail quest to seek the best, most reusable
representation of a problem in terms of abstract entities and behaviors.  To
me, that is just buffoonery that's not worth the effort most of the time. OO
programs are more complex and slower than their structured counterparts.
Oh, but boy do they have elegant internals! If you are more concerned with
_how_ you solve a problem than with _that_ you solve the problem, OO can be a
happy hunting ground.

Maybe the understanding hit you so sharply because you didn't understand
structured, abstract programming in the first place, so your gestalt was a leap
straight into OO. If that is the case, it is understandable why you would feel
so enlightened.

 >So I can understand what Meyers means by 'serious debriefing', it was only
 >after my notions of structured programming logic were deeply suppressed

It sounds like you are missing an intermediate step there. Structured
programming refers to the use of program constrol structures. Or are you
referring to structured analysis and design,  including data abstraction and
modularity and all that? How about encapsulation and the separation between
interfaces and implementation? You can have all these things without calling
it OO.

If you are a master in this paradigm, OO doesn't strike you as anything ``Zen
like'', but as a marginal improvement in some aspects of design  and
implementation that's generally not worth the hassle. You can benefit from
OO approaches even ifyou use languages like C and Modula 2. You don't need the
extra linguistic frills to benefit from the useful concepts of the paradigm.

Knowing it makes for a good resume filler nowadays, mind you.  A successful
resume in the computing field has some mention of ``Object Oriented'', or the
``OO'' contraction in it somewhere. :)
--