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Just out of curiosity, is you background in web development and/or the C family of languages (i.e. C, C++, C#)? I mention these because they rely heavily on ob

Just out of curiosity, is you background in web development and/or the C family of languages (i.e. C, C++, C#)? I mention these because they rely heavily on object-oriented and/or imperative programming paradigms. With C and C++, I still struggle often with striking a good balance between "writing a short solution that works well" and "writing code which is a joy for others to read". The former often relies on my technical knowledge and produces code that can be obscure to other readers, the latter often requires MUCH more concentration and attention to detail when writing. However, I have recently started experimenting with declarative and functional Programming. Coming from an imperative background has made "relearning" how to program quite difficult for me, but I've just started to see the "elegance" in higher level functional languages, such as OcaML and Haskell. Of course, functional languages are often MUCH better suited to different problems than OOP languages, but combining filters, reductions, maps and folds seems to activate the parts of my brain that are much more closely associated with the "classical logic" side of programming. I think you should check it out if you haven't already.

kharak 8y ago
You're on to something. I started with database programming, so mostly declarative. That was a joy and I did't need much time to catch up with the senior developers. Afterwards, I switched my employer and started anew with Java. I was completely overwhelmed and struggle to this day. Last week, I learned a little bit about streams and how functional programming works in Java. To my surprise, that seemed quite easy to understand. I don't really know why OOP seems so much harder for me to do.
- jayar95 8y ago
  If you like the functional aspects of Java, check out kotlin. It's quickly become my favorite programming languages because you get all the benefits of java's strongly typed OOP system with a lot of elegant functional features, and type inference!!
- mrfredward 8y ago
  Honestly, I thinks it's because a lot of OOP is awkward and forced. When it was the craze, object orientation became an ends instead of a means, and so it taken past the point of being clean and useful. Why do c# and java require every function, including main, be in a class? Why do we need static classes, which are really just a namespace for functions? There's no benefit to the programmer, it only serves the "everything is an object" paradigm. Certain OOP patterns, like the visitor pattern, are really just hacks to make OOP work like functional. I use c# everyday at work and for the most part love it, but there are certain problem domains (anything with significant multithreading) where forced OOP thinking just makes everything harder than it needs to be.
  - james_s_tayler 8y ago
    Curious, can you explain how the visitor pattern is like functional programming? What is it analogous to in FP? It's not a pattern I have ever really wrapped my head around fully, but perhaps there is some structure in functional programming that if I view it through that lens it will make much more sense?
wool_gather 8y ago
This was exactly my thought as well: parent might find that a different programming language/paradigm suits their natural thought processes better. Try out a Lisp, maybe, or even something real fun like Prolog. There's still details to be aware of, but they definitely have a different "flavor" that might be more palatable.

kharak 8y ago

You're on to something. I started with database programming, so mostly declarative. That was a joy and I did't need much time to catch up with the senior developers. Afterwards, I switched my employer and started anew with Java. I was completely overwhelmed and struggle to this day. Last week, I learned a little bit about streams and how functional programming works in Java. To my surprise, that seemed quite easy to understand. I don't really know why OOP seems so much harder for me to do.

jayar95 8y ago
If you like the functional aspects of Java, check out kotlin. It's quickly become my favorite programming languages because you get all the benefits of java's strongly typed OOP system with a lot of elegant functional features, and type inference!!
mrfredward 8y ago
Honestly, I thinks it's because a lot of OOP is awkward and forced. When it was the craze, object orientation became an ends instead of a means, and so it taken past the point of being clean and useful. Why do c# and java require every function, including main, be in a class? Why do we need static classes, which are really just a namespace for functions? There's no benefit to the programmer, it only serves the "everything is an object" paradigm. Certain OOP patterns, like the visitor pattern, are really just hacks to make OOP work like functional. I use c# everyday at work and for the most part love it, but there are certain problem domains (anything with significant multithreading) where forced OOP thinking just makes everything harder than it needs to be.
- james_s_tayler 8y ago
  Curious, can you explain how the visitor pattern is like functional programming? What is it analogous to in FP? It's not a pattern I have ever really wrapped my head around fully, but perhaps there is some structure in functional programming that if I view it through that lens it will make much more sense?

wool_gather 8y ago

This was exactly my thought as well: parent might find that a different programming language/paradigm suits their natural thought processes better. Try out a Lisp, maybe, or even something real fun like Prolog. There's still details to be aware of, but they definitely have a different "flavor" that might be more palatable.