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I think the problem with explaining the MOP is that it really only pays off with systems that are big enough and complicated enough that you really can't use th
by EdwardCoffin 4y ago
I think the problem with explaining the MOP is that it really only pays off with systems that are big enough and complicated enough that you really can't use them as examples in a book. You can provide contrived examples but then some readers just nitpick on how contrived they are.
- gjvc 4y agoExcellent observation. I would like to see an edition of this book addressing a real project. Note that the only way to really learn a language is "have a project to implement in that language", not just read examples.
- EdwardCoffin 4y agoI feel compelled to note that I was cribbing my observation from a similar one made by Guy Steele, who ran into similar trouble finding a non-trivial example to justify the necessity of tail calls in an object oriented language [1]: > (someone's criticism): The objection to TCO that you're trying to answer is that it's rarely helpful in the real world. So you have to find real-world examples to refute that. An impractically-slow set isn't a real-world example. > (GLS response): I wish I could fit a real-world example onto a blog page. The best I can do is to exhibit a "toy" example that illustrates the basic idea. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110716163344/http://projectfortress.sun.com/Projects/Community/blog/ObjectOrientedTailRecursion#comment-7 https://web.archive.org/web/20110716163344/http://projectfor...