Are Objects really hard?

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Are Objects really hard?

Janko Mivšek
Hi guys,

Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
Programming [1] where he said:

"...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
programming language originally designed to scale from children to
adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
to this day how to do them right...."

He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
with inheritance:

"Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."

Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
inheritance, please.

Best regards
Janko

[1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
[2]
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html

--
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si

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Re: [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

Hernan Wilkinson-3
Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-)

He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-)




On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]> wrote:
Hi guys,

Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
Programming [1] where he said:

"...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
programming language originally designed to scale from children to
adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
to this day how to do them right...."

He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
with inheritance:

"Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."

Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
inheritance, please.

Best regards
Janko

[1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
[2]
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html

--
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si




--
Hernán Wilkinson
Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
email: [hidden email]
site: http://www.10Pines.com
Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Re: [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

Schwab,Wilhelm K
Yes, programming is hard.  It's even harder if one is poorly educated and not well read.  I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay.  I recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation.

The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional approaches to software implementation.  All they seem to care about is this or that "technology" they saw in a glossy ad.

Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford?  He was on a good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately uttered the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?"  I was a little surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he said.

The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO.



From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of Hernan Wilkinson [[hidden email]]
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM
To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Cc: VWNC; [hidden email]; GNU Smalltalk; [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-)

He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-)




On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]> wrote:
Hi guys,

Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
Programming [1] where he said:

"...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
programming language originally designed to scale from children to
adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
to this day how to do them right...."

He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
with inheritance:

"Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."

Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
inheritance, please.

Best regards
Janko

[1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
[2]
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html

--
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si




--
Hernán Wilkinson
Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
email: [hidden email]
site: http://www.10Pines.com
Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Janko Mivšek
Let we remember that Smalltalk was designed for a kids, so "programming
is hard anyway" is in my opinion just too simplified answer.

While teaching new Smalltalkers I noticed that those without any
programming experience got it faster, specially comparing to those with
a relational DB experience. Who were and are still part of mainstream.

So, maybe it is better to say that established habits and mental models
in programmers heads never changed enough to get OO right?

To rephrase a bit differently: Hardly anyone is playing OO right because
OO was used too long on top of relational world and the ideas of pure OO
were forgotten and lost.

Best regards
Janko

S, Schwab,Wilhelm K piše:

> Yes, programming is hard.  It's even harder if one is poorly educated
> and not well read.  I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk
> experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in
> computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay.  I
> recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation.
>
> The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't
> intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional
> approaches to software implementation.  All they seem to care about is
> this or that "technology" they saw in a glossy ad.
>
> Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford?  He was on a
> good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let
> themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately
> uttered the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?"  I was a
> little surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he
> said.
>
> The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* [hidden email]
> [[hidden email]] on behalf of Hernan
> Wilkinson [[hidden email]]
> *Sent:* Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM
> *To:* The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> *Cc:* VWNC; [hidden email]; GNU Smalltalk;
> [hidden email]
> *Subject:* Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?
>
> Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really
> understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody
> really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-)
>
> He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it
> neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-)
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
>     Hi guys,
>
>     Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
>     Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
>     Programming [1] where he said:
>
>     "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
>     programming language originally designed to scale from children to
>     adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
>     to this day how to do them right...."
>
>     He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
>     with inheritance:
>
>     "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
>     confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
>     of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."
>
>     Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
>     understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
>     inheritance, please.
>
>     Best regards
>     Janko
>
>     [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
>     [2]
>     http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html
>
>     --
>     Janko Mivšek
>     Aida/Web
>     Smalltalk Web Application Server
>     http://www.aidaweb.si
>
>
>
>
> --
> *Hernán Wilkinson
> Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
> Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
> email: [hidden email]
> site: http://www.10Pines.com <http://www.10pines.com/>*
> Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina
>

--
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si

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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Schwab,Wilhelm K
I think it's "worse" than that.  You are correct that relational storage has become a religion.  Most deny the flaws and can't even conceive of an alternative, let alone whether an alternative might be better for a given project.  But again, this comes down to education, broadening of the mind, and studying alternatives.  Mainstream programmers do not engage in those activities, to great cost.

Bill


________________________________________
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of Janko Mivšek [[hidden email]]
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 8:12 AM
To: [hidden email]; Squeak; 'VWNC'; GNU Smalltalk
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Are Objects really hard?

Let we remember that Smalltalk was designed for a kids, so "programming
is hard anyway" is in my opinion just too simplified answer.

While teaching new Smalltalkers I noticed that those without any
programming experience got it faster, specially comparing to those with
a relational DB experience. Who were and are still part of mainstream.

So, maybe it is better to say that established habits and mental models
in programmers heads never changed enough to get OO right?

To rephrase a bit differently: Hardly anyone is playing OO right because
OO was used too long on top of relational world and the ideas of pure OO
were forgotten and lost.

Best regards
Janko

S, Schwab,Wilhelm K piše:

> Yes, programming is hard.  It's even harder if one is poorly educated
> and not well read.  I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk
> experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in
> computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay.  I
> recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation.
>
> The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't
> intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional
> approaches to software implementation.  All they seem to care about is
> this or that "technology" they saw in a glossy ad.
>
> Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford?  He was on a
> good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let
> themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately
> uttered the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?"  I was a
> little surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he
> said.
>
> The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO.
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* [hidden email]
> [[hidden email]] on behalf of Hernan
> Wilkinson [[hidden email]]
> *Sent:* Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM
> *To:* The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> *Cc:* VWNC; [hidden email]; GNU Smalltalk;
> [hidden email]
> *Subject:* Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?
>
> Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really
> understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody
> really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-)
>
> He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it
> neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-)
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
>     Hi guys,
>
>     Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
>     Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
>     Programming [1] where he said:
>
>     "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
>     programming language originally designed to scale from children to
>     adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
>     to this day how to do them right...."
>
>     He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
>     with inheritance:
>
>     "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
>     confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
>     of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."
>
>     Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
>     understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
>     inheritance, please.
>
>     Best regards
>     Janko
>
>     [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
>     [2]
>     http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html
>
>     --
>     Janko Mivšek
>     Aida/Web
>     Smalltalk Web Application Server
>     http://www.aidaweb.si
>
>
>
>
> --
> *Hernán Wilkinson
> Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
> Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
> email: [hidden email]
> site: http://www.10Pines.com <http://www.10pines.com/>*
> Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina
>

--
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si


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Re: [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

Hernan Wilkinson-3
In reply to this post by Schwab,Wilhelm K
I could not agree more... most programmers don't know what a is closure  (for example), have no idea of who is Alan Kay (or worse, Alonso Curch) and they only care about how to use Spring's dependency injection without understanding the real design flaw, or the new Hibernate annotations that will help them to write less "xml code"...... but there is hope :-)

On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:55 AM, Schwab,Wilhelm K <[hidden email]> wrote:
Yes, programming is hard.  It's even harder if one is poorly educated and not well read.  I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay.  I recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation.

The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional approaches to software implementation.  All they seem to care about is this or that "technology" they saw in a glossy ad.

Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford?  He was on a good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately uttered the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?"  I was a little surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he said.

The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO.



From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of Hernan Wilkinson [[hidden email]]
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM

To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Cc: VWNC; [hidden email]; GNU Smalltalk; [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-)

He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-)




On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]> wrote:
Hi guys,

Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
Programming [1] where he said:

"...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
programming language originally designed to scale from children to
adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
to this day how to do them right...."

He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
with inheritance:

"Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."

Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
inheritance, please.

Best regards
Janko

[1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
[2]
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html

--
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si




--
Hernán Wilkinson
Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
email: [hidden email]
site: http://www.10Pines.com
Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina




--
Hernán Wilkinson
Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
email: [hidden email]
site: http://www.10Pines.com
Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina

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Re: [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

Stéphane Ducasse
Janko

Frankly I do not care about what other people are thinking.
OOP is a success look at Java, C#.

Now let us keep our energy to build better Smalltalks.

Stef


On Feb 11, 2012, at 2:52 PM, Hernan Wilkinson wrote:

> I could not agree more... most programmers don't know what a is closure  (for example), have no idea of who is Alan Kay (or worse, Alonso Curch) and they only care about how to use Spring's dependency injection without understanding the real design flaw, or the new Hibernate annotations that will help them to write less "xml code"...... but there is hope :-)
>
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:55 AM, Schwab,Wilhelm K <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Yes, programming is hard.  It's even harder if one is poorly educated and not well read.  I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay.  I recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation.
>
> The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional approaches to software implementation.  All they seem to care about is this or that "technology" they saw in a glossy ad.
>
> Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford?  He was on a good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately uttered the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?"  I was a little surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he said.
>
> The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO.
>
>
> From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of Hernan Wilkinson [[hidden email]]
> Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM
>
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Cc: VWNC; [hidden email]; GNU Smalltalk; [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?
>
> Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-)
>
> He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-)
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
> Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
> Programming [1] where he said:
>
> "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
> programming language originally designed to scale from children to
> adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
> to this day how to do them right...."
>
> He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
> with inheritance:
>
> "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
> confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
> of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."
>
> Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
> understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
> inheritance, please.
>
> Best regards
> Janko
>
> [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
> [2]
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html
>
> --
> Janko Mivšek
> Aida/Web
> Smalltalk Web Application Server
> http://www.aidaweb.si
>
>
>
>
> --
> Hernán Wilkinson
> Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
> Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
> email: [hidden email]
> site: http://www.10Pines.com
> Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina
>
>
>
>
> --
> Hernán Wilkinson
> Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
> Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
> email: [hidden email]
> site: http://www.10Pines.com
> Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina
>


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Re: [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

Schwab,Wilhelm K
Lead by example.  +1.



________________________________________
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of Stéphane Ducasse [[hidden email]]
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 1:34 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

Janko

Frankly I do not care about what other people are thinking.
OOP is a success look at Java, C#.

Now let us keep our energy to build better Smalltalks.

Stef


On Feb 11, 2012, at 2:52 PM, Hernan Wilkinson wrote:

> I could not agree more... most programmers don't know what a is closure  (for example), have no idea of who is Alan Kay (or worse, Alonso Curch) and they only care about how to use Spring's dependency injection without understanding the real design flaw, or the new Hibernate annotations that will help them to write less "xml code"...... but there is hope :-)
>
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:55 AM, Schwab,Wilhelm K <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Yes, programming is hard.  It's even harder if one is poorly educated and not well read.  I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay.  I recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation.
>
> The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional approaches to software implementation.  All they seem to care about is this or that "technology" they saw in a glossy ad.
>
> Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford?  He was on a good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately uttered the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?"  I was a little surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he said.
>
> The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO.
>
>
> From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of Hernan Wilkinson [[hidden email]]
> Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM
>
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Cc: VWNC; [hidden email]; GNU Smalltalk; [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?
>
> Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-)
>
> He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-)
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
> Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
> Programming [1] where he said:
>
> "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
> programming language originally designed to scale from children to
> adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
> to this day how to do them right...."
>
> He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
> with inheritance:
>
> "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
> confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
> of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."
>
> Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
> understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
> inheritance, please.
>
> Best regards
> Janko
>
> [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
> [2]
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html
>
> --
> Janko Mivšek
> Aida/Web
> Smalltalk Web Application Server
> http://www.aidaweb.si
>
>
>
>
> --
> Hernán Wilkinson
> Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
> Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
> email: [hidden email]
> site: http://www.10Pines.com
> Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina
>
>
>
>
> --
> Hernán Wilkinson
> Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
> Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
> email: [hidden email]
> site: http://www.10Pines.com
> Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina
>



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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Janko Mivšek
In reply to this post by Janko Mivšek
Hi Stef,

S, stephane ducasse piše:

> Frankly I do not care about what other people are thinking.
> OOP is a success look at Java, C#.
>
> Now let us keep our energy to build better Smalltalks.

Well, after hard work it is good from time to time to make a
retrospection and let our thoughts to think a bit broader, to look from
a distance to our work. To see the forest and not just trees.

So such debate from time to time is certainly refreshing and needed,
specially if it is started from a outsider's perspective. Every wise man
listen to the opinion of others. Well, of course wisely :)

In this case I see a wise thinking about weaknesses of OO and Smalltalk
and how to overcome it by better "best practices". For instance, the
newcommers are asking where to find a guidelines for modeling OO domain
models in pure OO way. In this guidelines we can emphasise above
mentioned best practices, then author's claim that  "no one really
understands to this day how to do them right" won't be valid much anymore.

Best regards
Janko


> Stef
> On Feb 11, 2012, at 1:21 PM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
>
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
>> Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
>> Programming [1] where he said:
>>
>> "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
>> programming language originally designed to scale from children to
>> adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
>> to this day how to do them right...."
>>
>> He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
>> with inheritance:
>>
>> "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
>> confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
>> of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."
>>
>> Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
>> understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
>> inheritance, please.
>>
>> Best regards
>> Janko
>>
>> [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
>> [2]
>> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html
>>
>> --
>> Janko Mivšek
>> Aida/Web
>> Smalltalk Web Application Server
>> http://www.aidaweb.si
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> help-smalltalk mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-smalltalk
>

--
Janko Mivšek
Svetovalec za informatiko
Eranova d.o.o.
Ljubljana, Slovenija
www.eranova.si
tel:  01 514 22 55
faks: 01 514 22 56
gsm: 031 674 565

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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Schwab,Wilhelm K
Someone else, who I would bet money the average mainstream programmer would not know, Kent Beck, wrote a fairly nice book.  The Gang of Four, and Alpert, Brown and Woolf's "Smalltalk Companion" book are valuable reading.  Simon Lewis' Art and Science of Smalltalk is excellent.

The point is that people who refuse to read anything more than "Teach Yourself (insert latest fad) in 24 Hour" are perhaps not the best source of wisdom.

Bill


________________________________________
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of Janko Mivšek [[hidden email]]
Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 1:58 PM
Cc: 'VWNC'; [hidden email]; GNU Smalltalk; [hidden email]; The general-purpose Squeak developers list
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Are Objects really hard?

Hi Stef,

S, stephane ducasse piše:

> Frankly I do not care about what other people are thinking.
> OOP is a success look at Java, C#.
>
> Now let us keep our energy to build better Smalltalks.

Well, after hard work it is good from time to time to make a
retrospection and let our thoughts to think a bit broader, to look from
a distance to our work. To see the forest and not just trees.

So such debate from time to time is certainly refreshing and needed,
specially if it is started from a outsider's perspective. Every wise man
listen to the opinion of others. Well, of course wisely :)

In this case I see a wise thinking about weaknesses of OO and Smalltalk
and how to overcome it by better "best practices". For instance, the
newcommers are asking where to find a guidelines for modeling OO domain
models in pure OO way. In this guidelines we can emphasise above
mentioned best practices, then author's claim that  "no one really
understands to this day how to do them right" won't be valid much anymore.

Best regards
Janko


> Stef
> On Feb 11, 2012, at 1:21 PM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
>
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
>> Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
>> Programming [1] where he said:
>>
>> "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
>> programming language originally designed to scale from children to
>> adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
>> to this day how to do them right...."
>>
>> He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
>> with inheritance:
>>
>> "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
>> confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
>> of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."
>>
>> Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
>> understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
>> inheritance, please.
>>
>> Best regards
>> Janko
>>
>> [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
>> [2]
>> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html
>>
>> --
>> Janko Mivšek
>> Aida/Web
>> Smalltalk Web Application Server
>> http://www.aidaweb.si
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> help-smalltalk mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-smalltalk
>

--
Janko Mivšek
Svetovalec za informatiko
Eranova d.o.o.
Ljubljana, Slovenija
www.eranova.si
tel:  01 514 22 55
faks: 01 514 22 56
gsm: 031 674 565


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Re: Are Objects really hard?

mmimica
In reply to this post by Janko Mivšek
2012/2/11 Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]>

In this case I see a wise thinking about weaknesses of OO and Smalltalk
and how to overcome it by better "best practices". For instance, the
newcommers are asking where to find a guidelines for modeling OO domain
models in pure OO way. In this guidelines we can emphasise above
mentioned best practices, then author's claim that  "no one really
understands to this day how to do them right" won't be valid much anymore.

There are many books written on OO domain modeling and there is so much knowledge floating around. The claim that no one understands OO it just so stupid that it's not worth citing it. I for one do know how do it right, in any language. You don't even need an OO laguage. It has nothing do to with Smalltalk. It's about how you model real-life problems in code. I find it easy, straightforward and natural.


--
Milan Mimica
http://sparklet.sf.net
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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Janko Mivšek
Milan zdravo!

S, Milan Mimica piše:

> Janko Mivšek
>
>     In this case I see a wise thinking about weaknesses of OO and Smalltalk
>     and how to overcome it by better "best practices". For instance, the
>     newcommers are asking where to find a guidelines for modeling OO domain
>     models in pure OO way. In this guidelines we can emphasise above
>     mentioned best practices, then author's claim that  "no one really
>     understands to this day how to do them right" won't be valid much
>     anymore.

> There are many books written on OO domain modeling and there is so much
> knowledge floating around.

Can you and others list some of those books and other useful resources?
Which are currently most popular, which are regarded as classical?

Maybe we can list them as recommended literature on our websites.

Best regards
Janko

> The claim that no one understands OO it just
> so stupid that it's not worth citing it. I for one do know how do it
> right, in any language. You don't even need an OO laguage. It has
> nothing do to with Smalltalk. It's about how you model real-life
> problems in code. I find it easy, straightforward and natural.
>
> --
> Milan Mimica
> http://sparklet.sf.net

--
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si

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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Schwab,Wilhelm K
Here is a link from a source well known to us :)  If it is not linked on the Pharo site, it should be:

  http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks.html

Bill

________________________________________
From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of Janko Mivšek [[hidden email]]
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2012 7:02 AM
To: [hidden email]; Squeak; 'VWNC'; GNU Smalltalk
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Are Objects really hard?

Milan zdravo!

S, Milan Mimica piše:

> Janko Mivšek
>
>     In this case I see a wise thinking about weaknesses of OO and Smalltalk
>     and how to overcome it by better "best practices". For instance, the
>     newcommers are asking where to find a guidelines for modeling OO domain
>     models in pure OO way. In this guidelines we can emphasise above
>     mentioned best practices, then author's claim that  "no one really
>     understands to this day how to do them right" won't be valid much
>     anymore.

> There are many books written on OO domain modeling and there is so much
> knowledge floating around.

Can you and others list some of those books and other useful resources?
Which are currently most popular, which are regarded as classical?

Maybe we can list them as recommended literature on our websites.

Best regards
Janko

> The claim that no one understands OO it just
> so stupid that it's not worth citing it. I for one do know how do it
> right, in any language. You don't even need an OO laguage. It has
> nothing do to with Smalltalk. It's about how you model real-life
> problems in code. I find it easy, straightforward and natural.
>
> --
> Milan Mimica
> http://sparklet.sf.net

--
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si


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Re: Are Objects really hard?

mmimica
In reply to this post by Janko Mivšek
2012/2/12 Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]>

Can you and others list some of those books and other useful resources?
Which are currently most popular, which are regarded as classical?

Maybe we can list them as recommended literature on our websites.

Martin Fowler is my favorite. But there is a whole history of it, starting from GOF, or Christopher Alexander if you want. Again, it has nothing to do with Smalltalk in particular. You can do crappy architecture in Smalltalk just like you can in Java or C++.


--
Milan Mimica
http://sparklet.sf.net
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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Janko Mivšek
S, Milan Mimica piše:

>     Can you and others list some of those books and other useful resources?
>     Which are currently most popular, which are regarded as classical?
>
>     Maybe we can list them as recommended literature on our websites.

> Martin Fowler is my favorite. But there is a whole history of it,
> starting from GOF, or Christopher Alexander if you want. Again, it has
> nothing to do with Smalltalk in particular. You can do crappy
> architecture in Smalltalk just like you can in Java or C++.

I see many UML books around, so what is a state of UML modeling for
domain models in Smalltalk? Is anyone using it?

I have a feeling that Smalltalkers tend to avoid UML because of
complexity (it is complex, true), but it can be used pragmatically and
tailored to our use. Visualworks for instance have an nice UML class
editor called ADvance (see an example [1]), but it seems hardly anyone
use it.

At least class diagrams are very useful for documenting the domain
model. Just code is not enough. We are very weak here and maybe this is
a reason why people find Smalltalk hard. Because they are lost in all
that code, without any higher level picture.

Janko

[1] http://www.aidaweb.si/party-framework
--
Janko Mivšek
Aida/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si

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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Guido Stepken

Hi Janko!

Michael Perscheid at HPI showed us his nice UML addon for squeak. Its extracting the mental model out of Smalltalk Source, drawing editable UML diagrams, that even are able to change the source.

Reminds me to IBM Rational Rose, but much more advanced.

IMHO, this tool should be tightly intergrated into Pharo, porting should be easy.

best, Guido Stepken

> I have a feeling that Smalltalkers tend to avoid UML because of
> complexity (it is complex, true), but it can be used pragmatically and
> tailored to our use. Visualworks for instance have an nice UML class
> editor called ADvance (see an example [1]), but it seems hardly anyone
> use it.
>
> At least class diagrams are very useful for documenting the domain
> model. Just code is not enough. We are very weak here and maybe this is
> a reason why people find Smalltalk hard. Because they are lost in all
> that code, without any higher level picture.
>
> Janko
>
> [1] http://www.aidaweb.si/party-framework
> --
> Janko Mivšek
> Aida/Web
> Smalltalk Web Application Server
> http://www.aidaweb.si
>

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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Schwab,Wilhelm K
In reply to this post by mmimica
True, some of the worst code I have seen lives in older Smalltalk images - real procedural mess making, but it worked.

Overall, one can write junk in Smalltalk, but the point is that Smalltalk makes it easier to change bad code into good code.

One thing Pharo lacks is a really nice class hierarchy browser.  Some times, there is no substitute for seeing inheritance relationships undisturbed by the whims of a package browser.

Bill




From: [hidden email] [[hidden email]] on behalf of Milan Mimica [[hidden email]]
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2012 8:27 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Are Objects really hard?

2012/2/12 Janko Mivšek <[hidden email]>

Can you and others list some of those books and other useful resources?
Which are currently most popular, which are regarded as classical?

Maybe we can list them as recommended literature on our websites.

Martin Fowler is my favorite. But there is a whole history of it, starting from GOF, or Christopher Alexander if you want. Again, it has nothing to do with Smalltalk in particular. You can do crappy architecture in Smalltalk just like you can in Java or C++.


--
Milan Mimica
http://sparklet.sf.net
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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Göran Krampe
In reply to this post by Janko Mivšek
Hi all Smalltalkers!

Only cross posting to squeak and pharo (communities I know), because
this turned into a long post. But try reading it - I hope it is both fun
and perhaps interesting. :)

On 02/11/2012 01:21 PM, Janko Mivšek wrote:

> Hi guys,
>
> Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
> Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
> Programming [1] where he said:
>
> "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
> programming language originally designed to scale from children to
> adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
> to this day how to do them right...."

As Hernan pointed out - it is programming that is hard, not *objects*
per se. While that is true, one can of course still reflect on the
aspects of OO and why people *perceive* it as hard.

SIDENOTE: As Milan wrote later in the thread - the patterns movement
that Kent Beck started together with the Gang of Four led to the
creation of TONS of books fully packed with OO designs in various
domains. So yes, there is an *abundance* of books on OO design to find
*iff* one goes looking for it.

> He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
> with inheritance:
>
> "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
> confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
> of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."

Of all OO mechanisms most agree that inheritance is the one that gets
abused the most... if we disregard the "abuse" one can find in so called
OO code that stems from it not being OO at all :)

Alan writes "confusions" and I suspect he carefully avoids saying one is
wrong and the other is right, because its not that simple. Truth is one
can use inheritance differently - as long as it makes your life better
it can't really be argued to be "wrong". :)

I think most OO developers goes through some "ladder of enlightenment"
going something like this:

0. You really have no clue and tend to confuse composition "parts and
whole" with inheritance. You just create a mess. Perhaps you avoid this
mess by reading a book or attending an OO course, but hey, who does that
in 2012? ;). But let's say you *do* read a book - proceed to level 1...

1. You get all into Animals and other "inheritance" examples mirroring
the real world. Perhaps you get totally sucked into the "mirror the real
world"-idea. Thus, you try desperately to find "ISA" relations among the
domain objects and use those for inheritance, without really thinking
*why* that is a good idea. And sure, it often gets it fairly right so
it's a huge step forward. But let's pretend you now have coded quite a
bit and thus proceeds to level 2 :)

2. Specialization. After some time you start to understand polymorphism
and the substitution principle etc, so instead of blindly testing if "A
isa B" sounds right in your ears you start thinking in terms of
generalisation and specialization. And you see objects in your head. You
talk about them as if they are concrete and you can hold them in your
hand etc. Perhaps you even draw them on whiteboards and envision them in
different scenarios "talking to each other". If you use a statically
typed language this is where your road stops :). You end up writing
fairly good code, but your inheritance will probably be totally focused
on enabling polymorphism between objects, which of course is not all
bad. But hey, after a few years of Smalltalking - proceed to level 3.

3. As a seasoned Smalltalker you eventually come down from your "OO
rush" and realize that... hey, wait a minute! Polymorphism is not *tied*
to class inheritance (unless you are trapped in some static type
system). In fact, you realize that class inheritance in Smalltalk is
"merely" a nice way of reducing the redundancy of code by creating
dependencies between separate abstractions of code. This realization
enables you to use inheritance in a more liberal fashion - which
probably means you tend to use it *less*. And instead you tend to "add
more objects" and use composition of objects more and more, relying on
brittle deep hierarchies of inheritance less and less.

SIDENOTE: A really cool example of how powerful object composition is:
PetitParser by Lukas. For years we have been creating parsers by
generating code from specifications and suddenly Lukas decides that hey,
why not instead *compose* a parser from ...objects? It is so obvious in
retrospect, but the result is a tremendously nicer and more powerful way
of constructing parsers.

You also conclude that while you *can* reuse behaviors and compose
behaviors using inheritance you are also aware that inheritance creates
a life cycle *dependency* between classes that you *may* or *may not*
want to have. Class inheritance is a brittle relation. Thus, even if
class A *can* inherit from B, you might decide not to - because you
anticipate that the development lineage will diverge, or perhaps you
have no control over A (library? other developer? bad code?), and you do
not want that dependency. But the up side is that sometimes you *really*
want that dependency, change superclass and bam - affect all subclasses.

Another obvious benefit of inheritance is of course "documentation
structure" that you and other developers can understand.

...well. Of course, the above was written sloppily and can of course be
refined or totally shot down. Feel free to do both! :)

regards, Göran

PS. Why oh why did Pharo lose the "double click on ? in the class
browser to see inheritance textually"-mechanism? :)

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Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Are Objects really hard?

Frank Shearar-3
2012/2/13 Göran Krampe <[hidden email]>:

> Hi all Smalltalkers!
>
> Only cross posting to squeak and pharo (communities I know), because this
> turned into a long post. But try reading it - I hope it is both fun and
> perhaps interesting. :)
>
>
> On 02/11/2012 01:21 PM, Janko Mivšek wrote:
>>
>> Hi guys,
>>
>> Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
>> Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
>> Programming [1] where he said:
>>
>> "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
>> programming language originally designed to scale from children to
>> adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
>> to this day how to do them right...."
>
>
> As Hernan pointed out - it is programming that is hard, not *objects* per
> se. While that is true, one can of course still reflect on the aspects of OO
> and why people *perceive* it as hard.
>
> SIDENOTE: As Milan wrote later in the thread - the patterns movement that
> Kent Beck started together with the Gang of Four led to the creation of TONS
> of books fully packed with OO designs in various domains. So yes, there is
> an *abundance* of books on OO design to find *iff* one goes looking for it.
>
>
>> He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
>> with inheritance:
>>
>> "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
>> confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
>> of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."
>
>
> Of all OO mechanisms most agree that inheritance is the one that gets abused
> the most... if we disregard the "abuse" one can find in so called OO code
> that stems from it not being OO at all :)
>
> Alan writes "confusions" and I suspect he carefully avoids saying one is
> wrong and the other is right, because its not that simple. Truth is one can
> use inheritance differently - as long as it makes your life better it can't
> really be argued to be "wrong". :)
>
> I think most OO developers goes through some "ladder of enlightenment" going
> something like this:
>
> 0. You really have no clue and tend to confuse composition "parts and whole"
> with inheritance. You just create a mess. Perhaps you avoid this mess by
> reading a book or attending an OO course, but hey, who does that in 2012?
> ;). But let's say you *do* read a book - proceed to level 1...
>
> 1. You get all into Animals and other "inheritance" examples mirroring the
> real world. Perhaps you get totally sucked into the "mirror the real
> world"-idea. Thus, you try desperately to find "ISA" relations among the
> domain objects and use those for inheritance, without really thinking *why*
> that is a good idea. And sure, it often gets it fairly right so it's a huge
> step forward. But let's pretend you now have coded quite a bit and thus
> proceeds to level 2 :)
>
> 2. Specialization. After some time you start to understand polymorphism and
> the substitution principle etc, so instead of blindly testing if "A isa B"
> sounds right in your ears you start thinking in terms of generalisation and
> specialization. And you see objects in your head. You talk about them as if
> they are concrete and you can hold them in your hand etc. Perhaps you even
> draw them on whiteboards and envision them in different scenarios "talking
> to each other". If you use a statically typed language this is where your
> road stops :). You end up writing fairly good code, but your inheritance
> will probably be totally focused on enabling polymorphism between objects,
> which of course is not all bad. But hey, after a few years of Smalltalking -
> proceed to level 3.
>
> 3. As a seasoned Smalltalker you eventually come down from your "OO rush"
> and realize that... hey, wait a minute! Polymorphism is not *tied* to class
> inheritance (unless you are trapped in some static type system). In fact,
> you realize that class inheritance in Smalltalk is "merely" a nice way of
> reducing the redundancy of code by creating dependencies between separate
> abstractions of code. This realization enables you to use inheritance in a
> more liberal fashion - which probably means you tend to use it *less*. And
> instead you tend to "add more objects" and use composition of objects more
> and more, relying on brittle deep hierarchies of inheritance less and less.

Well, we like to look at Java and hold our noses, but really, Java has
a rubbish type system, regardless of it being static. Now if you were
looking at some Haskell code, you'd see some highly polymorphic stuff
going on thanks to typeclasses. And in the dynamic functional language
corner you'd recognise good Smalltalk practice in Clojure's Protocols.
(They like to say that protocols solve the Expression Problem, but
really, it's multimethods that do that, not protocols.)

If you'd like to see Clojure's protocols in action, this is a nice
demonstration: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3515862

The thing to bear in mind here is that (a) protocols won't surprise
you; they're "this thing responds to this set of messages" just as
you'd expect and (b) they do not pollute the global namespace: you can
add a method to some object _in a scoped manner_.

> SIDENOTE: A really cool example of how powerful object composition is:
> PetitParser by Lukas. For years we have been creating parsers by generating
> code from specifications and suddenly Lukas decides that hey, why not
> instead *compose* a parser from ...objects? It is so obvious in retrospect,
> but the result is a tremendously nicer and more powerful way of constructing
> parsers.

But you realise the irony here, right? That if you google "parser
combinator" you hit all those "non-OO" languages like Haskell (and
then the new kids like Scala and F#). (Yes, yes, 3rd hit's Gilad's
talk. Not surprising.) But then, that in itself isn't terribly
surprising, because not many people get at a deep level that objects
are nothing more than higher order functions that close over
variables.

I have a long-running argument with a colleague who says (among other
reasons) that he thinks Smalltalk is rubbish because class-based
systems are rubbish (because of all the issues around inheritance).
But, of course, while we happen to use classes all the time, we don't
HAVE to. And, indeed, there are several prototype-based Smalltalk
libraries. Because, at its core, Smalltalk isn't about classes, it's
about objects sending messages to each other.

> You also conclude that while you *can* reuse behaviors and compose behaviors
> using inheritance you are also aware that inheritance creates a life cycle
> *dependency* between classes that you *may* or *may not* want to have. Class
> inheritance is a brittle relation. Thus, even if class A *can* inherit from
> B, you might decide not to - because you anticipate that the development
> lineage will diverge, or perhaps you have no control over A (library? other
> developer? bad code?), and you do not want that dependency. But the up side
> is that sometimes you *really* want that dependency, change superclass and
> bam - affect all subclasses.

Indeed: you should probably only use inheritance if you _have to_.
Exactly because it couples every class in an hierarchy together, and
you can no longer understand a method without understanding how that
method overrides/replaces/is overridden/is replaced in the tree.

> Another obvious benefit of inheritance is of course "documentation
> structure" that you and other developers can understand.

I'm sure we can do much better though. I'm thinking here of "this is a
Stream because it understands <set of standard Stream messages>".

frank

> ...well. Of course, the above was written sloppily and can of course be
> refined or totally shot down. Feel free to do both! :)
>
> regards, Göran
>
> PS. Why oh why did Pharo lose the "double click on ? in the class browser to
> see inheritance textually"-mechanism? :)
>

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Re: Are Objects really hard?

Sven Van Caekenberghe
In reply to this post by Göran Krampe

On 13 Feb 2012, at 10:23, Göran Krampe wrote:

> PS. Why oh why did Pharo lose the "double click on ? in the class browser to see inheritance textually"-mechanism? :)

I just tried in my 1.4 image #14329 image with the standard browser and it works:

ProtoObject #()
        Object #()
                Magnitude #()
                        LookupKey #('key')

                                Association #('value')

Sven
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