Posted by Jerry Stuckle on 10/07/07 14:55

Ben C wrote:
> On 2007-10-07, Jerry Stuckle <jstucklex@attglobal.net> wrote:
>> Ben C wrote:
> [...]
>>> One might say well that's just bad OO programming, not OO programming in
>>> general. But that's a cop-out-- the real question is how hard or easy is
>>> it to do good or bad OO programming.
>>>
>> It's bad OO design. It is easy to do good OO programming, with the
>> right training and experience.
>
> I can believe you in theory, but I've never actually seen any good OO
> programming, and lot of bad OO programming. Where does this training
> come from? Who has this experience?
>

For one thing, I've been doing OO design for around 20 years, 17 of
those as a consultant. I've been on some projects which have good
designs, and managed OO projects. Also, I've taught several OOAD
courses to various organizations.

The experience is in some corporations. I have been brought in as a
consultant when they don't have that experience, to help them along.
Some I train, some already have been trained but no experience.

You're not going to get it out of a library book. This is something you
need to do hands on, with experienced designers.

> Name a good open source OO-designed program and I will gladly have a
> look at it and be prepared to learn something.
>

I have no idea. I don't follow much open source. But again, this is
something you aren't going to learn by reading - any more than you can
become a good golfer by reading golf magazines.

>>> OO can encourage people to make too many design decisions up-front,
>>> before they really know what they want to do yet.
>>>
>> Good design (not just OO) dictates that your decisions MUST be made up
>> front.
>
> For houses, yes, not for programs.
>

Nope, the same it true for programs. Otherwise those programs become a
mess of fixes, half-assed patches and other such stuff. It wastes
programmers time and makes the code less reliable and harder to maintain
and modify later.

>> Can you imagine creating the blueprints after the house is 1/2 built?
>> But that's how a lot of people approach programming problems.
>
> Indeed, and many programming problems are better approached that way.
>

Nope. No programming problem is "better" approached that way. Only
those who are either unable or don't want to plan ahead think that.

Programmers want to write code. You have to drag them kicking and
screaming to write *any* doc. And they will find every excuse they can
to not do it. Including that it "isn't necessary".

>>> It's supposed to protect against dreaded type mismatch errors-- you pass
>>> the wrong type of object to a function by mistake-- but how often do
>>> such errors actually really happen?
>>>
>> Nothing in OO protects against type mismatch errors. That is completely
>> dependent on how strict the language's type checking is. PASCAL, for
>> instance, is a non-OO language, but does not allow any type mismatches.
>
> OK, yes, OO and strict type checking are different things, and you can
> have either without the other.


--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================

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