Re: Objects and Relations

Marshall wrote:

> On Feb 7, 6:12 pm, "David BL" <davi..._at_iinet.net.au> wrote:
>

>>On Feb 8, 6:26 am, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>>>Consider the following
>>
>>>>>void foo(Employee* p1,  Employee* p2)
>>>>>{
>>>>>   // Q1.  What does this mean?
>>>>>   if (p1 == p2)  ...
>>
>>>Conditional test whether p1 and p2 point to the same variable.
>>
>>Bob is confused about the difference between 'variable' and 'object'.

As Dr. Phil would say: David is levelling. To be perfectly accurate, p1 and p2 point to memory locations. They could point to ROM or to memory mapped I/O devices. If they point to ROM, one could argue they point to something constant. That said, almost all memory locations address variables.

However, 'object' has nothing whatsoever to do with the above. An instance of an object class is a variable. If the self-aggrandizing ignorant doesn't mean an instance of an object class when he uses 'object' above, he is actively trying to avoid communication.

>>Since the object type is (incorrectly) named
>>"Employee" on casual reading it may appear to be true if and only if
>>p1 and p2 designate the same Employee.

He's just making up shit as he goes along. Just by acknowledging he said anything, we elevate his crap.

>>In my designs I aim for correctness and brevity.  Correctness is not
>>negotiable.  An incorrectly named class is not an option.

Speaking of the importance of naming, did you hear about the Hungarian space program?

In any case, we have this from probably the most influential person on earth when it comes to naming:

"If a quantity is incorrectly classified, we have a style problem, not a bug."

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa260976(VS.60).aspx

  Do you imagine being able
> to write some kind of theorem prover that will tell you
> if a name is good or not? And how can you be claiming
> brevity when you want to put a "-model" suffix on the name
> of every class in the application domain?

Face it--he's a self-aggrandizing ignorant. He declares something to be correct and everything else to be incorrect so that he has an unassailable position for self-promotion. ie. He becomes the de facto expert on what is correct.

> You still haven't provided any evidence that actual programmers
> actually get confused about something that they wouldn't
> get confused about if they just used a suffix on the name.

As Walt would say: "He's not even wrong." Received on Fri Feb 09 2007 - 04:32:32 CET