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Disagree! If a programmer is good or bad is not a quality separate from how they actually develop programs! A good programmer is good because they choose approp

by olavk 12y ago

Disagree! If a programmer is good or bad is not a quality separate from how they actually develop programs! A good programmer is good because they choose appropriate tools and methodology etc.

moron4hire 12y ago
That is not at the granularity of "OO vs. FP". Again, plenty of people have very successfully built projects with the OO methodology. That doesn't mean you have to. That doesn't mean it's what is best for you. But articles like this ignore fundamental, empirical proof: OO has worked. There will be hundreds, maybe thousands, of projects started this year in an OO methodology, and they will live or die not because the developers chose OO, but because of generally more basic issues of competency. I interview developers for positions all the time. Out of every 10 I interview, one can't write a basic "Hello, world" program that actually compiles, in the languages they list in their resume, on their own computers. About 7 or 8 more can't even close a database connection or file handle correctly. I can go a year and meet one, maybe two developers I would trust to write code in any methodology, in any programming language. And they usually have jobs they like and don't want to leave. Projects don't fail because someone chose OO. They fail because most people claiming to be developers suck.
- chriswarbo 12y ago
  > articles like this ignore fundamental, empirical proof: OO has worked. There will be hundreds, maybe thousands, of projects started this year in an OO methodology, and they will live or die not because the developers chose OO, but because of generally more basic issues of competency. If projects live or die based on competency, not methodology, then how is the existence of so many projects proof that "OO has worked", rather than proof that "Software Engineering is prone to bandwagons and hype"?
- olavk 12y ago
  Agree that experience shows that it is possible to build successful projects in OO. But nobody have suggested otherwise. It might still be that some other paradigm might be better, e.g. the successful project might have been done faster and cheaper using a different method. The existence of crappy programmers definitely does not suggest that all methodologies are equally good.
- w0utert 12y ago
  Very much agreed, the point you're making is exactly why I hate languages that try to hide the fact that programming is difficult, to make the life of the developer easy. This almost inevitably encourages bad programming practices, and does not do anything to improve code quality produced by incapable developers. It's why I dislike Java so much and prefer C++, even though both have their strong and weak points, and both can be used to create great software. That said, I've stopped taking 'OO is bad' articles seriously long ago. Over 15 years of professional software development have sufficiently proven for me that there are many problems that fit the OO model perfectly, and would not benefit in any way from switching paradigms. Just like some (but decidedly less) other problems are a perfect fit for functional programming or procedural programming. There is no silver bullet in programming, what works best is entirely dictated by the problem, and problems come in infinite varieties.

by olavk 12y ago

Disagree! If a programmer is good or bad is not a quality separate from how they actually develop programs! A good programmer is good because they choose appropriate tools and methodology etc.

moron4hire 12y ago

That is not at the granularity of "OO vs. FP". Again, plenty of people have very successfully built projects with the OO methodology. That doesn't mean you have to. That doesn't mean it's what is best for you. But articles like this ignore fundamental, empirical proof: OO has worked. There will be hundreds, maybe thousands, of projects started this year in an OO methodology, and they will live or die not because the developers chose OO, but because of generally more basic issues of competency. I interview developers for positions all the time. Out of every 10 I interview, one can't write a basic "Hello, world" program that actually compiles, in the languages they list in their resume, on their own computers. About 7 or 8 more can't even close a database connection or file handle correctly. I can go a year and meet one, maybe two developers I would trust to write code in any methodology, in any programming language. And they usually have jobs they like and don't want to leave. Projects don't fail because someone chose OO. They fail because most people claiming to be developers suck.

chriswarbo 12y ago
> articles like this ignore fundamental, empirical proof: OO has worked. There will be hundreds, maybe thousands, of projects started this year in an OO methodology, and they will live or die not because the developers chose OO, but because of generally more basic issues of competency. If projects live or die based on competency, not methodology, then how is the existence of so many projects proof that "OO has worked", rather than proof that "Software Engineering is prone to bandwagons and hype"?
olavk 12y ago
Agree that experience shows that it is possible to build successful projects in OO. But nobody have suggested otherwise. It might still be that some other paradigm might be better, e.g. the successful project might have been done faster and cheaper using a different method. The existence of crappy programmers definitely does not suggest that all methodologies are equally good.
w0utert 12y ago
Very much agreed, the point you're making is exactly why I hate languages that try to hide the fact that programming is difficult, to make the life of the developer easy. This almost inevitably encourages bad programming practices, and does not do anything to improve code quality produced by incapable developers. It's why I dislike Java so much and prefer C++, even though both have their strong and weak points, and both can be used to create great software. That said, I've stopped taking 'OO is bad' articles seriously long ago. Over 15 years of professional software development have sufficiently proven for me that there are many problems that fit the OO model perfectly, and would not benefit in any way from switching paradigms. Just like some (but decidedly less) other problems are a perfect fit for functional programming or procedural programming. There is no silver bullet in programming, what works best is entirely dictated by the problem, and problems come in infinite varieties.