Re: Anti-OOP... stupid?

2012-02-15 Thread foobar

On Wednesday, 15 February 2012 at 20:55:47 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:


Lisp/scheme macros come to mind :)


=D. I actually thought about explicitly excluding those to get 
a more meaningful answer. Using runtime code modification is 
cheating.


There are certainly ways to dynamically dispatch, expand and 
execute a macro in lisp. If every D program was allowed to 
include a complete D compiler, virtual template functions would 
work too. Can you point me to an implementation in lisp that 
does this and is actually fast enough to be considered for real 
work?



There are no issues AFAIK integrating
those with OOP, in fact the OOP features are implemented with 
macros

(CLOS).


You can use templates to implement a multiple-dispatch virtual 
function system just fine. We are not talking about 
implementing OOP using templates, but about using templated 
virtual methods.


Anyway, I don't see your point yet: You seem to think templates 
are poorly designed because dynamic languages such as lisp are 
more flexible than static languages such as D?


I'm no lisp expert and as such Google would be better than me to 
point to specific implementations and such :)


regarding run-time modification of code - as I said, i'm no lisp 
expert but I did hear about lisp AOT compilers so it should be a 
matter of implementation. Another example which I'm more familiar 
with is Nemerle macros which are closely related to Lisp macros 
and follow similar design principles. In fact Nemerle macros are 
separately compiled plugins for the compiler which can manipulate 
the AST directly.


Regarding templated virtual methods - take a look at:
http://nemerle.org/wiki/index.php?title=Design_patterns



Re: Anti-OOP... stupid?

2012-02-15 Thread foobar

On Wednesday, 15 February 2012 at 15:35:53 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:

On 02/15/2012 03:30 PM, foobar wrote:

...
1. D templates are an enhanced version of C++ templates which 
are a poor
design. The problem stems IMO not from issues with OOP but 
rather with
the horrible idea of C++-like templates. Other languages have 
*much*

better solutions which integrate better.

[snip.]


Please elaborate. What kind of construct in a language that 
supports OO solves the same set of problems D templates do and 
is unequivocally a better design?


Lisp/scheme macros come to mind :) There are no issues AFAIK 
integrating those with OOP, in fact the OOP features are 
implemented with macros (CLOS).


Re: Anti-OOP... stupid?

2012-02-15 Thread foobar

On Wednesday, 15 February 2012 at 15:35:37 UTC, bearophile wrote:

foobar:

1. D templates are an enhanced version of C++ templates which 
are a poor design. The problem stems IMO not from issues with 
OOP but rather with the horrible idea of C++-like templates. 
Other languages have *much* better solutions which integrate 
better.


C++ is one of the most commonly used languages, probably there 
are billions of lines of C++ in use, and C++ library code uses 
templates often, so despite the well known flaws of C++ 
templates (bloat, bad error messages, etc), they are somehow 
"good enough", they aren't horrible.


Compared to C++, D templates introduce constraints, a better 
syntax, and more uniform/sane semantics of details. Bjarne 
Stroustrup is still trying to invent simplified Concepts to 
improve C++ templates, to give them "static" types.


Java generics, C# generics, Ada generic programming, C++ 
templates, ML polymorphism, Haskell type inference with type 
classes, Haskell template extensions, are designed to satisfy 
different needs and constraints. All of them are used and 
useful, none of them are perfect.


Bye,
bearophile


I beg to differ. I was talking about the *design* aspect of 
templates and you seem to agree that it is flawed. the design 
*is* horrible and can be compared to other better designs. The 
fact that it is used in so much software is a completely 
orthogonal matter. Most people use qwerty keyboards (including 
me) but that does not mean it's the superior design. on the 
contrary, it was *intentionally* designed to be flawed for 
historical reasons that are no longer relevant. what is "good 
enough"? it is highly subjective. Is it enough to be commonly 
used by many people? what other criteria would be required to 
classify as good enough and not worth improvement? should we 
never strive to achieve better designs?


I don't know Haskell and won't comment on the above mentioned 
features but regarding generics (e.g in C#) - they have no 
conflicts with OOP and are a good feature.


Re: Anti-OOP... stupid?

2012-02-15 Thread foobar

On Tuesday, 14 February 2012 at 22:45:28 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 11:00:43PM +0100, Zero wrote:

Hello!

I've recently started to work with D, and I'll start a "bigger"
project soon, using it. For a few days I've been thinking 
about the
approach I'll take here, and since I don't /have/ to use full 
OOP in
D, I was wondering... how crazy is it to not use full OP 
nowadays?


I do that all the time. I guess that makes me crazy. :)


[...]
What I want to know from you people... is that stupid? To even 
think
about doing something like this? Basically mixing procedural 
and OOP?


D allows you to program in functional style, OOP, procedural 
style, or
any combination of them. There is a reason D was designed this 
way. :)



I know about the dangers, and disadvantages, but if those 
don't scare
one away, would you consider it bad, if someone did this, on a 
larger

project?

[...]

OOP has its own share of dangers and disadvantages. Which, 
sadly, most
people don't talk about very much because they don't have the 
guts to go
against the current cool trendy bandwagon that everyone's 
jumping on.


Templates, for one thing, don't fit very well into the OO 
paradigm (ever
tried a virtual template function?), even though you *can* use 
it to
enhance an OO-based design. And D's templates are one of the 
best things

about D, ever.

Of course, many aspects of OO does help with large projects, so 
it's
usually a good idea to take advantage of that. But that doesn't 
mean you
*have* to use OO, or that it's "bad" to mix in procedural stuff 
when it

suits you.

I mean, if you take OO to the extreme, that would require 
excluding all
those evil procedural constructs like if statements and for 
loops, and
write everything in terms of invoking object methods...  like 
this

monstrosity:

class MyClass {
void myMethod() {
IntVariable i;
ForLoopFactory.create(
new IntSetter(i.address(), new Number(0)),
new BooleanCondition(
new LessThanComparator(i.address(),
100)),
new IntAdder(&i, 1),
new IfStatement(
new EqualComparator(i.address(),
new Number(42)),
new FunctionCaller(writeln.address(),
new String("Found it!")),
)
).execute();
}
}

which is, of course, completely ridiculous.

The bottom line is, use whatever tools work best for what you 
need to
do. If OO works well, use it. If procedural code works well, 
that use
it. If both works well in different cases, then use a mix of 
both

depending on the circumstances.

Trying to shoehorn everything into an object is stupid.


T


I agree with the general sentiment to have a large toolbox and 
using the right tool for the job be it functional, OOP, etc.. 
having said that, I have to strongly disagree with both claims 
above.


1. D templates are an enhanced version of C++ templates which are 
a poor design. The problem stems IMO not from issues with OOP but 
rather with the horrible idea of C++-like templates. Other 
languages have *much* better solutions which integrate better.


2. The above horrible example completely misrepresents OOP. The 
"correct" way to truly do control flow in OOP is a-la smalltalk:


class My class {
 void myMethod() {
 ...
 100.times({ ... }); // for-loop
 (myVar > 42).ifTrue({ ... }); // if statement
 (myVar < 100).if({.. code if true ...}, {... code if false 
...});  //  if statement with else clause

 ...
  }
}

etc.. incidentally, Smalltalk uses selectors (Objective-C is 
basically fugly smalltalk..) : (expression) ifTrue: [ ^42 ] 
ifFalse: [ ^24 ] the above returns 42 if true and 24 otherwise.