4 ms·

Object Orientation (and other poorly understood idioms)

17 points by b-man 17y ago

scott_s 17y ago
The reason I began with that inflammatory statement concerning comp-scientists is that comp-sci is a branch of mathematics, I see this statement frequently, and it's almost always said by people who don't identify as computer scientists. I have a Bachelor's and Master's in computer science, am about a year away from a PhD in it, and I'm still not comfortable defining where exactly my field stands in regards to others. The best I can come up with is that it's a combination of math, science and engineering related to computation (the idea) and computers (the implementation). The point he's trying to make with this statement - programs should be viewed as a natural expression of a solution, not a to-do list for a computer - is valid. But he ignores that while computer languages can be put in the same hierarchy as natural languages, they have properties that allow us to use math to prove or guarantee conditions.
- ubernostrum 17y ago
  Computer science is what you get when mathematics and philosophy have a child, and hire electrical engineering as a babysitter.
  - philwelch 17y ago
    And have linguistics as a heavily involved uncle.
  - jonsen 17y ago
    And with that breed pediculosis mysteriously turned inheritable.
- tome 17y ago
  A combination of math and engineering is what I've always thought myself. What aspects of computer science are actually science in your opinion?
  - scott_s 17y ago
    In research. Our computer systems, despite being man-made, are complicated enough that we have to use the scientific method to understand their behavior. If you're a professional developer, then there's probably litte, if any, science in your work. Much in the same way that mechanical engineering is not science, but physics is.
jrockway 17y ago
This article uses a lot of words to say nothing more than that the author doesn't like Java or Smalltalk's implementation. I didn't get the whole thing about "don't create garbage objects" either. Not all state is persistent, programs have transient state as they go about their business. The transient state gets collected, and the space that it used can be reused for more transient state. That isn't wasteful or inefficient, it's a fact of life. (I think he's getting at reusing objects, which is a task for the compiler and GC, not for the programmer. The fact that Forth exposes that just means that Forth is a very low-level language, nothing more.) Anyway, I could nitpick his other points, but they just don't make any sense, and I don't really care.
speek 17y ago
White on black and small text makes me cry. I'm sure it would have been interesting, I just couldn't get very far without burning my eyes.
- jamesbritt 17y ago
  https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html Grab "zap colors". It's an eyesight saver.
- 321abc 17y ago
  White text on a black background is much easier on the eyes than black text on white background. And, as far as the fonts being too small, you can always enlarge them with CONTROL-+ in opera. I think firefox has a similar feature. Don't know about IE or the other browsers.

17 points by b-man 17y ago

The reason I began with that inflammatory statement concerning comp-scientists is that comp-sci is a branch of mathematics, I see this statement frequently, and it's almost always said by people who don't identify as computer scientists. I have a Bachelor's and Master's in computer science, am about a year away from a PhD in it, and I'm still not comfortable defining where exactly my field stands in regards to others. The best I can come up with is that it's a combination of math, science and engineering related to computation (the idea) and computers (the implementation). The point he's trying to make with this statement - programs should be viewed as a natural expression of a solution, not a to-do list for a computer - is valid. But he ignores that while computer languages can be put in the same hierarchy as natural languages, they have properties that allow us to use math to prove or guarantee conditions.

ubernostrum 17y ago
Computer science is what you get when mathematics and philosophy have a child, and hire electrical engineering as a babysitter.
- philwelch 17y ago
  And have linguistics as a heavily involved uncle.
- jonsen 17y ago
  And with that breed pediculosis mysteriously turned inheritable.
tome 17y ago
A combination of math and engineering is what I've always thought myself. What aspects of computer science are actually science in your opinion?
- scott_s 17y ago
  In research. Our computer systems, despite being man-made, are complicated enough that we have to use the scientific method to understand their behavior. If you're a professional developer, then there's probably litte, if any, science in your work. Much in the same way that mechanical engineering is not science, but physics is.

jrockway 17y ago

This article uses a lot of words to say nothing more than that the author doesn't like Java or Smalltalk's implementation. I didn't get the whole thing about "don't create garbage objects" either. Not all state is persistent, programs have transient state as they go about their business. The transient state gets collected, and the space that it used can be reused for more transient state. That isn't wasteful or inefficient, it's a fact of life. (I think he's getting at reusing objects, which is a task for the compiler and GC, not for the programmer. The fact that Forth exposes that just means that Forth is a very low-level language, nothing more.) Anyway, I could nitpick his other points, but they just don't make any sense, and I don't really care.

speek 17y ago

White on black and small text makes me cry. I'm sure it would have been interesting, I just couldn't get very far without burning my eyes.

jamesbritt 17y ago
https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html Grab "zap colors". It's an eyesight saver.
321abc 17y ago
White text on a black background is much easier on the eyes than black text on white background. And, as far as the fonts being too small, you can always enlarge them with CONTROL-+ in opera. I think firefox has a similar feature. Don't know about IE or the other browsers.