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Rees Re: OO

So OO is not a well defined concept. Some people (eg. Abelson and Sussman?) say Lisp is OO, by which they mean {3,4,5,7} (with the proviso that all types are in the programmers' heads). Java is supposed to be OO because of {1,2,3,7,8,9}. E is supposed to be more OO than Java because it has {1,2,3,4,5,7,9} and almost has 6; 8 (subclassing) is seen as antagonistic to E's goals and not necessary for OO.

The conventional Simula 67-like pattern of class and instance will get you {1,3,7,9}, and I think many people take this as a definition of OO.

Because OO is a moving target, OO zealots will choose some subset of this menu by whim and then use it to try to convince you that you are a loser.

Perhaps part of the confusion - and you say this in a different way in your little memo - is that the C/C++ folks see OO as a liberation from a world that has nothing resembling a first-class functions, while Lisp folks see OO as a prison since it limits their use of functions/objects to the style of (9.). In that case, the only way OO can be defended is in the same manner as any other game or discipline -- by arguing that by giving something up (e.g. the freedom to throw eggs at your neighbor's house) you gain something that you want (assurance that your neighbor won't put you in jail).

This is related to Lisp being oriented to the solitary hacker and discipline-imposing languages being oriented to social packs, another point you mention. In a pack you want to restrict everyone else's freedom as much as possible to reduce their ability to interfere with and take advantage of you, and the only way to do that is by either becoming chief (dangerous and unlikely) or by submitting to the same rules that they do. If you submit to rules, you then want the rules to be liberal so that you have a chance of doing most of what you want to do, but not so liberal that others nail you.

In such a pack-programming world, the language is a constitution or set of by-laws, and the interpreter/compiler/QA dept. acts in part as a rule checker/enforcer/police force. Co-programmers want to know: If I work with your code, will this help me or hurt me? Correctness is undecidable (and generally unenforceable), so managers go with whatever rule set (static type system, language restrictions, "lint" program, etc.) shows up at the door when the project starts.

I recently contributed to a discussion of anti-OO on the e-lang list. My main anti-OO message (actually it only attacks points 5/6) was http://www.eros-os.org/pipermail/e-lang/2001-October/005852.html. The followups are interesting but I don't think they're all threaded properly.

(Here are the pet definitions of terms used above: