Re: The wisdom of the object mentors (Was: Searching OO Associations with RDBMS Persistence Models)

Joe Van Dyk wrote:
> frebe73_at_gmail.com wrote:
> >>I have certainly found systems that should NEVER use an RDBMS. But I
> >>have never found a system that could not benefit from a good OO
> >>language.
> >
> >
> > But there are many (enterprise) applications there OOAD is not
> > suitable. Some OO languages (such as java) has disadvantages because
> > they don't allow first-order functions and function pointers.
>
> I don't know Java, but if your statement about Java disadvantages is
> true, that's a problem with Java -- not with OO.

It is simple, if not particularly convenient, to use what are essentially
first-order functions and function pointers in Java. However, the fact that you have to fake it illustrates why OOP is merely a useful point of view that works a lot of the time, as opposed to a true foundationally complete approach to programming.

Don't get me wrong; I really like OOP and it's what I use when I need to program. But don't mistake its usefulness for profundity. OOP has some deep problems, and some of its features, like encapsulation and inheritance, will be sloughed off when better techinques become widely available.

Marshall Received on Wed May 31 2006 - 19:54:52 CEST