Re: Real OO

[jhd@herold.franken.de (Joachim Durchholz)]

jsa@organon.com wrote 08.05.96 on Re: Real OO:

> > Well, it's the same with functions and routines. They were introduced
> > to reuse code (rings a bell, doesn't it?). But nowadays I find myself
> > using them just for naming a chunk of code.
> > This is a blatant abuse of the concept of a subroutine; after all, I
>
> Why do you say that?  I see no "abuse" of the concept at all.
> Subprograms stand for a piece of functionality.

That's not the original intent. Subprograms just happened to be useful  
for stuff the original inventors didn't consider. I think it's the  
same for classes; now people say "no, don't abuse classes for modules,  
that's a far too big gun at a small target".

> Whether you use it
> zero times, once, or a zillion times has no bearing on this.  How this
> is implmented also has no bearing on the _concept_.  I am speaking
> about what it is typically taken to stand for in a conceptual sense.

In language usage, words have a tendency to acquire new concepts if  
they are halfways appropriate. This has happened with the concept of  
subroutine, and I expect it to happen with the concept of class.

Of course less syntactic sugar for simple classes would be helpful.  
But I find myself using subroutines in spite of their clumsiness when  
it comes to just naming a piece of code, so I guess clumsiness doesn't  
really count in such a context.

> Yes, I know.  They are (typically) part of LACE (hmmm, if they are
> actually called clusters, maybe the extra language environment that
> the implementation is offering has to be called LACE...)  And since
> it is an add on, it is not as strong a notion and is YALL (yet another
> little language)...

Well, I think Bertrand has said what can be said about this. Clusters  
are a really central concept in BON. Lace is certainly YALL, but BON  
isn't... and Lace or an equivalent is part of BON.

-Joachim

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