Re: Parameter Modes, In In Out and Out

[mark_lundquist@my-deja.com]

In article <93mtn6$6t6$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
  dmitry6243@my-deja.com wrote:
> In article <93l8hm$rlp$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
>   mark_lundquist@my-deja.com wrote:
> > In article <93e4e6$ucg$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
> >   Robert Dewar <robert_dewar@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > It is NOT "using all advantages of [a] concept" to insist that
> > > it be used absolutely everywhere. On the contrary, that kind of
> > > approach leads to a much more restrictive and less useful
> > > expressive power.
> >
> > Very true.
> >
> > My favorite example is the notion of "purity" of OO languages, which
> > holds that some good comes from the ability to say "everything is a
> > class".  The only result is that you have to contort everything into
> > _being_ a class for the sake of being able to say this, so for
> > instance you have to have a "singleton" design pattern to work
around
> > not having packages with state, etc.
>
> Actually there are two different concepts here. One is that all
> language things are objects. Which is absurd because the word "all"
> makes the term object useless.

Yes.  Alex Stepanov of STL renown makes that point in this interview:

    http://www.stlport.org/resources/StepanovUSA.html

The problem I have with the whole premise of "pure OO", though, is the
equivocation on the terms "object" and "object oriented".  OO is about
the idea that you deal with abstractions (interfaces) and not with
representations.  That plays out in three concepts: encapsulation,
inheritance, and dynamic polymorphism.  Making "everything a class"
doesn't singularly facilitate any of these three aspects in better form
or greater measure; what it facilitates is just programming where
everything is a class!  Instead of having constructs that fit their
use, you have one construct whose use is then specialized (sometimes in
syntactically expensive ways) and then you have to figure out the use
by inspection.

In some ways I prefer the term "abstraction-oriented programming",
because the term "OOP" has become so muddled.




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