> 1. How it can be that people do or do not like objects.
I have observed the following that may fall into this category:
(1) Some people who do not use OOPLs do not want to change to using
OOPLs. That's fine, but it is sometimes presented as something
negative about OOPLs. Instead the explanation should be a
straightforward, "I don't want to understand that. I'm happy."
(2) Some people have tried OOPLs but have not completely mastered
them. That's fine, but it is sometimes presented as something
negative about OOPLs. Instead the explanation should be a
straightforward, "I have not mastered it yet. There may be
something wrong with it, or I may have something more to learn."
I frequently believe this is the underlying explanation of the
problem that is often described as "the fragile base class
problem".
(3) Some people, rightly IMO, want to build systems more easily than
they can even with OOPLs.
OTOH people who say they "do like objects" must be speaking of that
Platonic "OOPL". I, for one, "do like objects", i.e. I like a number
of OOPLs, I like learning about new OOPLs, patterns in any OOPL,
etc. That's what I would mean if I were to say "I like objects".
> 2. How it can be that XML and other
> non-computationally-complete but useful languages somehow serve
> as alternatives to objects.
Some people view "objects" as being not much different than data
modeling or knowledge representation. Maybe that is related to this
point?
-- Patrick Logan mailto:patrickl@gemstone.com Voice 503-533-3365 Fax 503-629-8556 Gemstone Systems, Inc http://www.gemstone.com