On Fri, 18 Sep 2009 06:22:44 -0700, frederic <fduboi...@gmail.com> wrote:
The OO debate in this thread is also very interesting. I would argue
that its really a trade-off between "predicting" future changes in your
source and "getting the prediction wrong". I would argue that it is
_great_ to see a lot of code reuse due to OO inheritance and
polymorphism (the good thing about OO) but at the same time extremely
painful if the inheritance and polymorphic structure is not aligned to
new changes to the source.
Code reuse is not the monopoly of OO. Code reuse is just a matter of
librairies and their usability.
When a program is well designed, you generally end up with an aggregate of
modules, each one doing one thing. They may be turned into libraries with
little
extra efforts and be reused in another project.
I agree. I was talking about evolving a given module itself (say adding
acceleration support to a canvas library). Of course, bigger problems exist
when you start changing the library interfaces themselves.
Also, I would like to know, what do people on this list feel about type
checking in general? A lot of language research in academia focuses on
typing constructs when at the same time the industry seems to be
favoring scripting languages and "duck" typing for productivity. What do
you think?
I favour static typing because of the extra safety and optimisations; it
also help
communications between programmers at source level (when the types are not
automatically
inferred, that is). I detest those dynamic languages with which a typo in
the name of a variable
makes your app blow at runtime (if you're lucky).
Isn't it amazing, then, to see a lot of developers grab onto dynamic languages
like crazy? Something must be working well for the dynamic languages...
Also, something else crossed my mind when thinking about type checking. When
reasoning about OO complexity shouldn't we separate OO type checking from OO
itself? Aren't dynamic OO languages prone to less of OO problems we discussed
in this thread (modulo, the new problems they create as aptly pointed out by
parent)?
Cheers,
--
Pinocchio
