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Yes, it is, and OOP was all about message passing, not synchronous calls. The current incantation in pretty much all OOP languages (excepted maybe Smalltalk) is

Yes, it is, and OOP was all about message passing, not synchronous calls. The current incantation in pretty much all OOP languages (excepted maybe Smalltalk) is basically procedural programming with namespaces.

whstl 4y ago
"All about message passing" was Alan Kay's vision of OOP, which was very distinct from what is considered OOP both before and after. He did coin the term "OOP" himself, though, so of course his definition carries a lot of weight, of course. Even Simula, the original OOP language, is much closer to the procedural-ish OOP than to Smalltalk.
robertlagrant 4y ago
Genuine ignorant question: is this a language problem or a coding problem? I'm thinking of "sending a message" as a synchronous function call. Could you not code in a style that passes messages around?
- motoboi 4y ago
  Message passing has no response. You can simulate request-response with it, using a channel to go one way and another the other way, but it can get pretty convoluted.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    Understood, but could you not do this by coding style? I.e. calling a method returns void?
    - namaria 4y ago
      Whether something is already implemented in a language's core library, or a package you can use, or you build your own library, is immaterial. You can implement any patter with any turing complete language, and you can build your own language.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        That's true, but I'm not really talking about that.
        namaria 4y ago
        Correct me if I'm wrong, but you asked if message passing rests on language facilities or code style. Answer is neither. You can implement message passing patterns in Forth, in C, in Python, or you can use Erlang or Smalltalk and get it out of the box.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        I wasn't making it exclusive. I think the answer is either, not neither. The thing I wasn't asking was "can I implement a language that can do this in Java?" which is why I don't think the Turing completeness comment is particularly relevant.
        namaria 4y ago
        Depends on neither is the same as 'you can do with either'. Just different ways to express the same answer.
- st4lz 4y ago
  That's exactly what they want to avoid. The true goal of event-driven is the separation of concenrns, so you don't call `execute_payment`, `send_confirmation_email`, `include_in_report_dashboard` etc inside a `complete_order`. Instead, you emit "order_issued" event and all subscribers can act based on the event, completely unknown from `complete_order`. At least that is how I understand it.
pjmlp 4y ago
Erlang, Objective-C, Ruby, JavaScript, CLOS still offer that as concept. Then all the languages that support Component Programming via traits, interfaces, data classes, OS ABI like COM, or whatever they feel like calling it, do as well.

whstl 4y ago

"All about message passing" was Alan Kay's vision of OOP, which was very distinct from what is considered OOP both before and after. He did coin the term "OOP" himself, though, so of course his definition carries a lot of weight, of course. Even Simula, the original OOP language, is much closer to the procedural-ish OOP than to Smalltalk.

robertlagrant 4y ago

Genuine ignorant question: is this a language problem or a coding problem? I'm thinking of "sending a message" as a synchronous function call. Could you not code in a style that passes messages around?

motoboi 4y ago
Message passing has no response. You can simulate request-response with it, using a channel to go one way and another the other way, but it can get pretty convoluted.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Understood, but could you not do this by coding style? I.e. calling a method returns void?
  - namaria 4y ago
    Whether something is already implemented in a language's core library, or a package you can use, or you build your own library, is immaterial. You can implement any patter with any turing complete language, and you can build your own language.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      That's true, but I'm not really talking about that.
      - namaria 4y ago
        Correct me if I'm wrong, but you asked if message passing rests on language facilities or code style. Answer is neither. You can implement message passing patterns in Forth, in C, in Python, or you can use Erlang or Smalltalk and get it out of the box.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        I wasn't making it exclusive. I think the answer is either, not neither. The thing I wasn't asking was "can I implement a language that can do this in Java?" which is why I don't think the Turing completeness comment is particularly relevant.
        namaria 4y ago
        Depends on neither is the same as 'you can do with either'. Just different ways to express the same answer.
st4lz 4y ago
That's exactly what they want to avoid. The true goal of event-driven is the separation of concenrns, so you don't call `execute_payment`, `send_confirmation_email`, `include_in_report_dashboard` etc inside a `complete_order`. Instead, you emit "order_issued" event and all subscribers can act based on the event, completely unknown from `complete_order`. At least that is how I understand it.

pjmlp 4y ago

Erlang, Objective-C, Ruby, JavaScript, CLOS still offer that as concept. Then all the languages that support Component Programming via traits, interfaces, data classes, OS ABI like COM, or whatever they feel like calling it, do as well.