Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Nick - Another answer to your question, and those raised by the other responses to yours is to another question... rather than literally about what OO Programmers/Designers mean by "Object", but what features are most useful to someone who *doesn't* write software or design systems. It is worth

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Sorry, my reference to the "why trap" refers to teleology and the (apparent) success of science after it began focusing on "what" not "why". As a pragmatist, I ass/u/me/d you'd understand that. Mea culpa. It's *literally* irrelevant what OOP was designed to do. What matters is what it

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Glen, I am not sure what the "why-trap" is. If you think me sometimes cagey, it's usually because I am trying to not to say more than I know, and when I am talking to computer folks about programming, I know so little that it probably sounds like I am talking with my hands over my mouth. I

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Nick, Marcus does a good job of avoiding your "why" trap. But he doesn't (usually) telegraph his (purposeful) rhetorical jitsu. 8^) I would posit that OOP isn't really *designed* so much as it is evolved. Sure, there are people afflicted with the Great Man Theory, thinking that OOP sprung from

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

For example, if all you have is an interface to a sort routine, and that sort happens to be a bubble sort -- an O(n^2) cost – you might avoid sorting if you had a lot of items to track, if only because you observed the sort routine took a long time. Or if your processor only could do scalar

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Marcus, Am I correct that this is what “oop” is designed to avoid? “This” being what you describe below? Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Eric, The tomato plants are seven feet tall. The end justifies the means. Nick Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology Clark University http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -Original Message- From: Friam

Re: [FRIAM] Science question...re: cold neck scarfs

Yes that's similar to the kind that I have in your right it works great! On Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 8:41 AM Robert Holmes wrote: > If you really want to blow your mind, consider these mesh cooling towels: > https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y4RW17N/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8=1 > > When

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Nick writes: “And like any modular system (DNA comes to mind), modularity is a great spur to creativity, leaving programmers free to work on better modules knowing that as long as the version of the “object“ they design (which, say, can work in a greater variety of heat conditions or uses less

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Nick, how could you! (about to get myself in trouble again for thinking I remember something that is probably wrong) > Here’s another story. Years ago my 1970’s era Troy Bilt tiller began to fail > and I took it to a Guy. The Guy said, yes I can rebuild your engine, pretty > much like new.

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

You're poking at the difference between a type/class/protocol/interface versus an object/implementation. There can be no difference in the type/class unless there's a difference in the objects that constitute that type/class. So, your 2 rats are of a type, implemented by different objects.

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Hope this helps https://xkcd.com/2021/ On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 9:53 AM Nick Thompson wrote: > David, and all, > > > > I am overwhelmed (of course) by the diversity and complexity of the > answers. I had expected at most a few answers, highly similar to one > another, of the form, “Nick you

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

David, and all, I am overwhelmed (of course) by the diversity and complexity of the answers. I had expected at most a few answers, highly similar to one another, of the form, “Nick you idiot….,” followed at most by a couple of sentences. It seems that I am missing some context that would

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

I think many non-trivial computational codes assume significant knowledge of the subject matter in order to use the tools. I’ve recently been using an optimization code that has 2445 tunable parameters, and only a small percentage of them have any obvious, intuitive meaning. Should it just do

Re: [FRIAM] Science question...re: cold neck scarfs

If you really want to blow your mind, consider these mesh cooling towels: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06Y4RW17N/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8=1 When you've been wearing it for a while and it has warmed up, you take it off, give it a sharp "snap", and it's immediately cold again. I

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Every one of the responses so far has said this. But it might help to say it differently, anyway. Objects, unlike utilities or functions and other "soft ware", have *particularity*. Each object is distinct from all other objects, regardless of how similar they may be. It may be useful to

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Nick, Many years ago I asked this question of an IT person in Austin (little different, about distributed objects), and he pointed me at this book, which I dutifully got and read: https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Distributed-Objects-Survival-Guide/dp/0471129933

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Beautifully stated, Dave. Thanks. TJ On Wed, Jul 18, 2018, 12:00 AM Prof David West wrote: > Hi Nick, > > An object is a specific way to define and design a module and a module is > a tool for segmenting, modularizing, the source code (what the programmer > actually writes, not what the machine

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Alan Kay is the coiner of the term Object-oriented Programming and the biological cell metaphor. In later years he thought that programmers might have had a better chance of writing object code if there was a clearer distinction between OO Design implemented with Message- oriented programming.

Re: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Hi Nick, An object is a specific way to define and design a module and a module is a tool for segmenting, modularizing, the source code (what the programmer actually writes, not what the machine executes) for a program. To parse this assertion - and then to explain how and why object