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As someone who has always found popular OOP stupid (programming is closer to math, not linguistics—write functional programs!) I'm glad Casey is going out there

As someone who has always found popular OOP stupid (programming is closer to math, not linguistics—write functional programs!) I'm glad Casey is going out there and giving talks like this. If extensive academic research and extensively documented benefits couldn't convince the industry to abandon OOP in favor of functional style maybe an everyman like Casey finally can. A lot of so-called programmers and systems "engineers" act like religious zealots. Even challenging the ideas of OOP is blasphemy to them, even though there are many legitimate reasons to do so.

vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
I was around when OOP became popular in the 90s. I think it was a huge step forward. Problem is that with almost every useful paradigm at some point consultants and zealots take over and push things to an extreme that doesn't work. And when problems show up, it's because you didn't do it right. Happened with OOP, NoSQL, Agile and probably many others. I don't see how functional style won't go differently.
- lisbbb 1y ago
  Despite spending untold hours learning and using C++ and Java, I never fully believed that OOP was anything great. It always felt so forced to code everything in terms of classes rather than just modules of code that have similar responsibilities.
  - Jtsummers 1y ago
    You must not mean C++ when you write about having to write everything in terms of classes. Java, yes, with the requirement that the nearest thing to a free standing function is a static method in a class (which becomes in effect a regular old module). But C++? You could, and many did, pretend it was fancy C and only deal with classes when it came to using things like collections and streams (because they were useful).
  - vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
    The whole code everything in classes idea came up when the purists took over. I (and most reasonable people I know) wrote most of their code in single functions and used instantiable classes only where it made sense. A class with only static methods is basically a module.
troad 1y ago
> programming is closer to math, not linguistics It's worth pointing out that actual linguistics is not unlike maths, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-bar_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-bar_theory, etc. There's an awful lot of vibes-and-feels nonsense about language in the popular press, which one ought not confuse with linguistics proper. In fact, as Casey mentions in this talk, a lot of the earliest ideas in software architecture came from trying to parse languages - both human and computer.
- lisbbb 1y ago
  [flagged]
- voidhorse 1y ago
  Yes, of course there is a connection through the Chomskian mathematization of syntax. But when we think about solving problems over domains and relations (e.g think about realizing that the problem of parsing requires traversing a tree like structure) we are dealing with mathematical-logical structures, not linguistic concepts. This is what I meant. I've seen a lot of OOP code that tried desperately to make code reflect the fuzzier relationships between linguistic concepts, rather than the precise ones of logical structure (a lot of this is a consequence of over-encapsulation and excessive information hiding)
  - troad 1y ago
    I slightly disagree on the specific point, but agree on the broader point. Formal grammar is not merely a notation for expressing linguistic rules that incidentally makes them appear akin to maths, it's a theory about what language is - a phenomenon rooted in, and best modelled by, formal logic. The reason formal grammar looks familiar to programmers is because computer science has borrowed tons of concepts from linguistics, concepts originally aimed at modelling human language. I agree with you on OOP. In a way, popular ideas about language are not unlike OOP: naive models with inherent contradictions that inevitably devolve into an incoherent mess. Ultimately, a person with a naive conception of how words, objects, and ideas interact is going to make a mess of trying to systematise virtually anything.
fc417fc802 1y ago
> A lot of so-called programmers and systems "engineers" act like religious zealots. Rather ironic given that in this very comment section I'm largely seeing that behavior associated with people appealing to Casey as an authority as an excuse not to engage with intelligently written counterpoints. I certainly won't defend the historic OOP hype but a tool is not limited by how the majority happen to use it at any given time. Rallying against a tool or concept itself is the behavior of a zealot. It's rallying against a particular use that might have merit.
- lisbbb 1y ago
  Just let me ask you this: How many years have you been in this game? I came in around 1990, but my first professional coding job wasn't until after I finished a BS in CS and Math in 1995. To me, having the perspective I have, OOP looks in retrospect to have been an enormous boondoggle championed by the Boomer generation. It as all people who did Waterfall, wrote endless requirements documents before coding anything, and did quarterly or even yearly code releases, if you can even imagine that.
  - fc417fc802 1y ago
    Not quite as long as you, but I don't think it's relevant to the point at hand. I entirely agree with what you wrote, and yet I think it's entirely in keeping with what I said. It's the things that actually happened that were the boondoggle, not the paradigm itself. Similarly I'd like to suggest that there exist situations where waterfall is the obviously correct choice. Yet even then someone could still potentially manage to screw it up.
- voidhorse 1y ago
  This is completely true, of course—the only reason I'm being a bit hyperbolic is because some rebalancing is still in order. I agree that once the field matures what we will really (hopefully) finally see are people adopting different modes of organization based on the second order systems properties they support, rather than ideology or personal experience—but we aren't there yet. I think there are certain cases in which using an object oriented approach makes sense, but man, it has led to so many bloated, needlessly complicated systems in which the majority of the work is dealing with inanities imposed by OOP discipline and structure rather than dealing with the actual problem the system is supposed to solve.
lisbbb 1y ago
Yes! It became extremely tiresome to defend my position as a functional programmer from less experienced people who had big egos. Time and time again I would be accused of "not having enough experience" simply because I disagreed with just so many stupid things that have gone on over the years--the zealots I ran into where people with big chips on their shoulders who just had to be "right" instead of being inquisitive and thoughtful. I never had anything to prove, I just wanted to write tight, testable, maintainable code.
wolvesechoes 1y ago
Can't wait to read similar comments about FP in a few years. To abandon the OOP would be a symptom of the same hysteria that caused its proselytization. IT industry has a bipolar disorder.

vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago

I was around when OOP became popular in the 90s. I think it was a huge step forward. Problem is that with almost every useful paradigm at some point consultants and zealots take over and push things to an extreme that doesn't work. And when problems show up, it's because you didn't do it right. Happened with OOP, NoSQL, Agile and probably many others. I don't see how functional style won't go differently.

lisbbb 1y ago
Despite spending untold hours learning and using C++ and Java, I never fully believed that OOP was anything great. It always felt so forced to code everything in terms of classes rather than just modules of code that have similar responsibilities.
- Jtsummers 1y ago
  You must not mean C++ when you write about having to write everything in terms of classes. Java, yes, with the requirement that the nearest thing to a free standing function is a static method in a class (which becomes in effect a regular old module). But C++? You could, and many did, pretend it was fancy C and only deal with classes when it came to using things like collections and streams (because they were useful).
- vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
  The whole code everything in classes idea came up when the purists took over. I (and most reasonable people I know) wrote most of their code in single functions and used instantiable classes only where it made sense. A class with only static methods is basically a module.

troad 1y ago

> programming is closer to math, not linguistics It's worth pointing out that actual linguistics is not unlike maths, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-bar_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-bar_theory, etc. There's an awful lot of vibes-and-feels nonsense about language in the popular press, which one ought not confuse with linguistics proper. In fact, as Casey mentions in this talk, a lot of the earliest ideas in software architecture came from trying to parse languages - both human and computer.

lisbbb 1y ago
[flagged]
voidhorse 1y ago
Yes, of course there is a connection through the Chomskian mathematization of syntax. But when we think about solving problems over domains and relations (e.g think about realizing that the problem of parsing requires traversing a tree like structure) we are dealing with mathematical-logical structures, not linguistic concepts. This is what I meant. I've seen a lot of OOP code that tried desperately to make code reflect the fuzzier relationships between linguistic concepts, rather than the precise ones of logical structure (a lot of this is a consequence of over-encapsulation and excessive information hiding)
- troad 1y ago
  I slightly disagree on the specific point, but agree on the broader point. Formal grammar is not merely a notation for expressing linguistic rules that incidentally makes them appear akin to maths, it's a theory about what language is - a phenomenon rooted in, and best modelled by, formal logic. The reason formal grammar looks familiar to programmers is because computer science has borrowed tons of concepts from linguistics, concepts originally aimed at modelling human language. I agree with you on OOP. In a way, popular ideas about language are not unlike OOP: naive models with inherent contradictions that inevitably devolve into an incoherent mess. Ultimately, a person with a naive conception of how words, objects, and ideas interact is going to make a mess of trying to systematise virtually anything.

fc417fc802 1y ago

> A lot of so-called programmers and systems "engineers" act like religious zealots. Rather ironic given that in this very comment section I'm largely seeing that behavior associated with people appealing to Casey as an authority as an excuse not to engage with intelligently written counterpoints. I certainly won't defend the historic OOP hype but a tool is not limited by how the majority happen to use it at any given time. Rallying against a tool or concept itself is the behavior of a zealot. It's rallying against a particular use that might have merit.

lisbbb 1y ago
Just let me ask you this: How many years have you been in this game? I came in around 1990, but my first professional coding job wasn't until after I finished a BS in CS and Math in 1995. To me, having the perspective I have, OOP looks in retrospect to have been an enormous boondoggle championed by the Boomer generation. It as all people who did Waterfall, wrote endless requirements documents before coding anything, and did quarterly or even yearly code releases, if you can even imagine that.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  Not quite as long as you, but I don't think it's relevant to the point at hand. I entirely agree with what you wrote, and yet I think it's entirely in keeping with what I said. It's the things that actually happened that were the boondoggle, not the paradigm itself. Similarly I'd like to suggest that there exist situations where waterfall is the obviously correct choice. Yet even then someone could still potentially manage to screw it up.
voidhorse 1y ago
This is completely true, of course—the only reason I'm being a bit hyperbolic is because some rebalancing is still in order. I agree that once the field matures what we will really (hopefully) finally see are people adopting different modes of organization based on the second order systems properties they support, rather than ideology or personal experience—but we aren't there yet. I think there are certain cases in which using an object oriented approach makes sense, but man, it has led to so many bloated, needlessly complicated systems in which the majority of the work is dealing with inanities imposed by OOP discipline and structure rather than dealing with the actual problem the system is supposed to solve.

lisbbb 1y ago

Yes! It became extremely tiresome to defend my position as a functional programmer from less experienced people who had big egos. Time and time again I would be accused of "not having enough experience" simply because I disagreed with just so many stupid things that have gone on over the years--the zealots I ran into where people with big chips on their shoulders who just had to be "right" instead of being inquisitive and thoughtful. I never had anything to prove, I just wanted to write tight, testable, maintainable code.

wolvesechoes 1y ago

Can't wait to read similar comments about FP in a few years. To abandon the OOP would be a symptom of the same hysteria that caused its proselytization. IT industry has a bipolar disorder.