2 ms·

I feel good about all of these questions except the OO design one. I would rather declare types and write functions that operate on those types; granted it's th

by wingo 17y ago

I feel good about all of these questions except the OO design one. I would rather declare types and write functions that operate on those types; granted it's the same, semantically, but if I focus on nouns personally I start coding stupid stuff.

raganwald 17y ago
I'm guessing that in an actual interview Yegge would be sympathetic to your point of view: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of-nouns.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom... That being said, here's a question: How many people who self-identify as functional programmers could write an OO program competently? Compare and contrast to the question of how many people who self-identify as OO programmers could write a functional progam competently? Do the paradigms themselves have anything to do with the difference? Or is this strictly an issue of bias for other reasons?
- smanek 17y ago
  I would guess that almost all functional programmers know OO programming, but very few OO programmers know functional programming. I think this is just because of pedagogic issues. Every introductory book/class introduces OO, but most undergraduate CS courses barely discuss functional programming (besides a semester on ML or Scheme, if you're particularly lucky). So, the people who go out off the beaten path to learn functional programming are a self selected subset that is particularly driven, curious, etc.
  - raganwald 17y ago
    That would be my conjecture about academia. In business, a certain kind of person learns the languages and paradigms that appear to be well-represented in monster.com job postings.
- wingo 17y ago
  I do self-identify as a functional programmer, and when I have to write an OO solution to a problem, I often get it wrong. Less wrong when I'm working with a more common idiom (like a tree of widgets), more wrong when I'm striking out into the wild. In my personal (non-work) work, I don't do objects at all. I just don't find that stateful solutions sit right with me.
j_baker 17y ago
I think you have to be realistic here. Sure, functional concepts are arguably more powerful than OOP concepts. But if you can't understand OOP, how are you going to work in a Java/C++ shop like Google (where presumably Steve Yegge would be giving you a phone screen).

by wingo 17y ago

raganwald 17y ago

I'm guessing that in an actual interview Yegge would be sympathetic to your point of view: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom-of-nouns.html http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/execution-in-kingdom... That being said, here's a question: How many people who self-identify as functional programmers could write an OO program competently? Compare and contrast to the question of how many people who self-identify as OO programmers could write a functional progam competently? Do the paradigms themselves have anything to do with the difference? Or is this strictly an issue of bias for other reasons?

smanek 17y ago
I would guess that almost all functional programmers know OO programming, but very few OO programmers know functional programming. I think this is just because of pedagogic issues. Every introductory book/class introduces OO, but most undergraduate CS courses barely discuss functional programming (besides a semester on ML or Scheme, if you're particularly lucky). So, the people who go out off the beaten path to learn functional programming are a self selected subset that is particularly driven, curious, etc.
- raganwald 17y ago
  That would be my conjecture about academia. In business, a certain kind of person learns the languages and paradigms that appear to be well-represented in monster.com job postings.
wingo 17y ago
I do self-identify as a functional programmer, and when I have to write an OO solution to a problem, I often get it wrong. Less wrong when I'm working with a more common idiom (like a tree of widgets), more wrong when I'm striking out into the wild. In my personal (non-work) work, I don't do objects at all. I just don't find that stateful solutions sit right with me.

j_baker 17y ago

I think you have to be realistic here. Sure, functional concepts are arguably more powerful than OOP concepts. But if you can't understand OOP, how are you going to work in a Java/C++ shop like Google (where presumably Steve Yegge would be giving you a phone screen).