From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,d24e07f660698f1 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,d24e07f660698f1 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,d24e07f660698f1 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,d24e07f660698f1 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: walth@netcom.com (Walt Howard) Subject: Re: I use Eiffel! and other "strange tongues"! Date: 1997/08/08 Message-ID: <33ece633.1679480@news.deltanet.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 262835866 References: <33C61545.167EB0E7@tower.com> <01bc94e6$9ced0820$287b7b7a@tlo2> <33E1B18E.66B4DEC2@docs.uu.se> <33e4d7ec.1596193@news.deltanet.com> <33E36594.416A@ibm.net> <33EA0A6D.42E6@radcor.com> <33EAA395.2E63@pseserv3.fw.hac.com> Organization: Delta Internet Services, Inc. Reply-To: walth@netcom.com Newsgroups: comp.software-eng,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-08-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: On Fri, 8 Aug 1997 04:41:57 GMT, "W. Wesley Groleau x4923" wrote: >> 1. Many developers have had difficulty in learning OOP, and Steve >> McConnell (in his book "Rapid Development") even goes so far as to >> say that OOP is too difficult for the average programmer to do. I think he's right. >OOP is difficult when OOP is defined and practiced by extremists in >a way that makes it difficult. This is diametrically opposed to the >truth that OOP is often (NOT always) a natural way of viewing things. I would agree with the first statement. In most shops I've been around, it takes an average C programmer 2 to 5 years to wake up to OOP. A lot of them just don't get the point. I mean really, 20% of programmers I've know don't even understand how to break a program into functions! How many 800 line main()s have you seen? I've seen plenty. There is no way that a function impaired programmer is going to grasp OOP which is the next level up. The main hurdle I've found is that they mostly don't understand why encapsulation is a good thing. Until they do, there is no way they'll take the effort to design classes. Learning a new paradigm is difficult enough. If you don't want to learn it because you think it's silly, it's downright impossible. That is why programmers should learn a strict OOP language, so they can't cheat. It FORCES them to design classes. Something like Java might be good for C programmers. But they should learn C first because learning programming should give one a brief exposure to the way our modern paradigms were developed and why. So learning the "old way" just enough to understand why the new way is better is a good thing, otherwise, you never understand how bad it was and why you have to take all the effort to do OOP breakdown before you start coding. Walt Howard