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=0.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fac41,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gidfac41,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 114809,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid114809,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,b87849933931bc93 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public From: demer@hc17031.hcsd.ca (David Emery) Subject: Re: What is wrong with OO ? Date: 1997/01/20 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 211139066 sender: demer@hc17031.hcsd.ca references: <32D11FD3.41C6@wi.leidenuniv.nl> organization: HCSD newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.lang.eiffel,comp.lang.ada,comp.object,comp.software-eng Date: 1997-01-20T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: With many OO languages, including C++ and SmallTalk, I've observed that it seems to be easy to get familiar with the language, but it's much harder to become fluent/expert in it. I suspect we'll see a similar pattern with Java. This is certainly my personal experience learning Java. Thus I'd suspect that the initial popularity of C++ was due to the following: (no ranking) * popularity of C * price * ease/intuition for the basic OO concepts. So, once Joe/Jane Programmer has reached the "familiarity" stage, the real issue is the amount of time it takes to get to the "fluent" stage. Thus I think that a more appropriate way at looking at this is not popularity or familiarity, but rather time to reach expertise. I'll leave it to others to define "expertise" for a given language. At the minimum, I'd expect "expertise" to include the ability to avoid common syntax/semantic mistakes, the ability to read/reason about and maintain code written by others, and at least passing familiarity with the distinction between "the language specifies..." and "this implementation does...". If you are going to be a practicing/professional programmer, producing real code, "familiarity" is not good enough. Expertise is required. dave -- <.sig is away on vacation>