Really? Most people can become surgeons? Are you sure about that?
Why not? Baring some physical or mental disability, all it takes is... education and experience.
No, not everyone should write code or perform brain surgery.
My exact point. Now, who is being obtuse again?
Tisk, tisk. You took that out of context. The next sentence is: "But that doesn't mean that most people are incapable of writing code or becoming skilled surgeons."
The simple fact is that some people are more capable than others for a given set of tasks.
That's not simple, and it's not a fact. It's just a fantasy that let's you think that you're somehow special because you can write code.
You know where that WTF code comes from? You, 10-20 years ago. You know, the inexperienced developer. If you have the opportunity, take a look at some code you wrote 5, 10, 15 years ago -- you'll be disgusted with yourself.
I've run in to quite a few of the idiots with whom I went to high-school. You know what? Some of them are surgeons. Some of them are pilots (or "airplane drivers"). Some of them are business owners or other business professionals.
Yes, and some of them are unskilled laborers -- the very category I would have put all of them in those many years ago. (When I was young, I thought myself exceptional as well. I chalk that up to youthful arrogance. I got over it. My self-worth is no longer defined by what I fancy myself as "good at".)
No, not everyone should write code or perform brain surgery. But that doesn't mean that most people are incapable of writing code or becoming skilled surgeons. Education and experience are what made the difference.
Programmers are not exceptional. You are not special because you're a programmer -- it's just a skill that you've learned and improved over time. Had you decided to pursue some other interest, you'd likely think yourself exceptional because of *that* skill.
Get over yourself. Really. It's not that impressive. Hell, most Slashdot users fancy themselves to be good programmers -- and many are better than you are or I am -- even a good number that are not or are no longer professional developers.
Programmers, the big daddy programmers are special and unique. Just like the engineers who created a ferrari or any other major achievement.
No, they're not. They are not special and unique.
Skill comes from experience -- it's as simple as that. The engineers who created a Ferrari? They're not special either -- engineering is a learned skill that, yes, anyone can learn. Grab the average auto mechanic and plop them in to a university engineering program and you'll have a competent engineer in a few years. A decade or so or work after that, and you'll have a great engineer. Some will be better than others, sure, but it's not a matter of intelligence -- it's a matter of dedication.
No one is born with a natural ability to write code or design car engines.
Guess what else is a learned skill? Design! Even better, it's a skill that can be taught! It doesn't take anything special -- just some education and experience.
I'd argue that it also takes desire and motivation - something not everyone will have.
Indeed, though that's true regardless of the skill at question. The same can be said for playing the piano, for example. The difference is that piano players don't fancy themselves geniuses above the average person!
It does also take a certain level of reasoning ability to become a good programmer.
Which, of course, is learned. Critical thinking and reasoning are not congenital -- they're learned skills.
or are they all just another load of the self-aggrandising bullshit that programmers like to surround themselves with
Just good old-fashioned egomania. I figure the ones here who think themselves exceptional are the ones who didn't go to college yet somehow manage to work in the industry. Lacking an education, and having no other skills, they try to build a mystique around their profession to insulate it and make themselves feel important.
By spreading the myth that you need to be special in some way to competently write code they think that others will also see them as more important or intelligent.
Mix that with a healthy dose of militant atheism and you've got this thread. See, chances are that if you're the vocal atheist type that you've turned science in to an ideology. Like many religious folks, they know little to nothing about their own faith, yet fancy themselves experts. This works for them as the motivations are the same: making themselves feel like they're exceptional.
"I'm already super-special because I can write code. I'm an atheist too, so I must understand everything important about physics, astronomy, biology, etc. Look at how much smarter I must be than the average person. I'm brillant" --Paula Bean
However, having attempted to teach people to program before, I can tell you for a fact that you need at least a particular mindset for it
Having actually taught people to program (in a formal setting) I can tell you for a fact that you suck at teaching. It does require "a particular mindset" but that can be taught. Really, it's the only thing that needs to be taught to turn non-programmers in to programmers -- the rest is just details.
Having taught many idiots to program has shown me that any idiot can program. All it takes is a little bit of dedication -- just like learning any other skill.
I think it requires a certain level of intelligence as a minimum. Nothing incredibly special but above average
There you have it. You think being able to program makes you special in some way or indicates that you're above average.
Here's the truth: Any idiot can write code. Hell, half of Slashdot taught themselves to program when they were between the ages of 8-13.
All it takes is the will to learn something new. It's no different than learning to work on cars. Do you think auto-mechanics have these same discussions? No. They're more emotionally stable, apparently, than the average developer.
Yeah, just about anyone can learn to write computer programs. Just like every who has ever learned to write code, they'll get better and better as they gain experience
Being able to write computer programs does not make you special. Get over yourself.
"Deaf culture" is the reason that the deaf community suffers from severe unemployment and illiteracy. Deaf culture is the reason so few deaf people pursue higher education. It's what keeps competent teachers and administrators out of deaf schools (you know, the ones who aren't "deaf enough"). Worst of all, it breeds fear and hatred; keeping the deaf community isolated.
Deaf culture is destroying any hope the deaf community has for a brighter future.
Deaf culture is a disease far worse than the disability. It needs to be choked out. It needs to disappear. Deaf culture is the REAL threat.
What Bell did was give us a way to check to see if those properties existed before the measurement. Experiments show Bell's inequality to be violated. You're still thinking in classical terms -- science moved on nearly 100 years ago.
A shame, really. OOP doesn't lend itself to modularity. Before OOP, we had many other approaches to modularity even languages where modularity was emphasized.
Different use I guess. I don't 'sync' either, but don't pull anything down over wifi. I swap SD cards for different content, like audio tapes.
Cheap, and tiny, MP3 player goes 10-12 hours on a AA battery. My phone stays off, and charged. Nothing is worse than competing for a free outlet at the airport for the few minutes I have to spare on a layover.
Indeed, though if you dig around you'll find that a great deal of the site isn't centered around design patterns.
Not entirely sure it's true, but it's certainly a pain to search up and down an inheritance tree to find where a function gets defined.
That's a different problem with so-called object oriented languages. Adele Goldberg sums it up: "In Smalltalk, everything happens somewhere else"
Other things to consider would be things like the circle-ellipse problem, the limits of hierarchies, etc. Really, there's a whole world of new problems caused by OPP. The question, of course, is does it improve code quality or developer productivity?
Not according to Potok, T. E., Vouk, M. & Rindos, A. (1999) Productivity Analysis of Object-Oriented Software Developed in a Commercial Environment Software - Practice and Experience, 29(10), pp 833-847
Other studies have come to similar conclusions. It seems like we're adding complexity for no practical benefit when we buy in to the OOP hype.
At least I'm in good company, OOP was dropped from the freshman curriculum at CMU. You may remember this from a few years ago: "Object-oriented programming is eliminated entirely from the introductory curriculum, because it is both anti-modular and anti-parallel by its very nature, and hence unsuitable for a modern CS curriculum."
Just for fun, this classic essay which has made quite a splash, despite it's origins as a blog post: Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns
I'm just tossing stuff out here. There's tons of stuff on the web and a few zillion discussions we could have. I don't even know where to begin, there isn't any focus. If you have an ACM DL subscription, there is enough reading to keep you busy for a few years.
Object oriented is passing methods around with data. All the other characteristics that you mentioned (encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism) can, and do, exist outside an OOP paradigm.
Yup. Everyone seems to have their own definition. A quick google search and you'll see that the one I offer, and laugh at, is actually pretty common.
I'll give you this much, if OOP was limited to what you describe, it would cause far less harm than the abuses in the name of OOP causes today. Of course, we wouldn't call it OOP, we'd just use the term "object" like we say "record" or "int" without pretending it was anything more. I could get behind that.
Because it sounded like you might have something interesting to say on the topic. I like interesting conversations.
I have a lot to say on the subject, though I've found that it's not possible to have a productive discussion on Slashdot.:) If you're interested in the topic, I recommend that you check out some of the discussions on the c2 wiki -- lots of different perspectives and surprisingly productive dialog.
It's a consequence of not having a way to easily renumber your lines.
Back in ancient times, when unstructured BASIC was still king, there was the RENUM (sometimes RENUMBER) command -- that let you quickly and easily renumber your lines.
Or, you know, you could plan your projects better. Judicious use of GOSUB helped as well.
Curious then, what programming paradigm would you prefer?
OOP isn't a paradigm. Hell, it doesn't even have a coherent definition! I've seen moronic proponents, in defense of "the one true way", go so far as to say than any form of structure or modularity is OOP "by definition". Hmmm... Perhaps learning to program doesn't give you critical thinking skills after all...
Usually people "define" it by listing off encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. Too funny, as inheritance and encapsulation are fundamentally incompatible with one another (e.g. inheritance breaks encapsulation)
Don't bother mentioning things like modularity, as that was around long before the OOP hype -- a shame that OOP has spoiled a lot of development in that area.
Find a single legitimate publication of his that was peer-reviewed by non-morons.
Impossible. Any peer-reviewed publication would, by you, be considered illegitimate. Failing that, you'd assume the (anonymous) peer reviewers were morons.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? Most people can become surgeons? Are you sure about that?
Why not? Baring some physical or mental disability, all it takes is ... education and experience.
No, not everyone should write code or perform brain surgery.
My exact point. Now, who is being obtuse again?
Tisk, tisk. You took that out of context. The next sentence is: "But that doesn't mean that most people are incapable of writing code or becoming skilled surgeons."
The simple fact is that some people are more capable than others for a given set of tasks.
That's not simple, and it's not a fact. It's just a fantasy that let's you think that you're somehow special because you can write code.
You're not exceptional, you're an egomaniac.
No, they won't. They will, however, be a competent and skilled musician.
The problem with developers who think themselves exceptional because they can program is that they all fancy themselves a Mozart.
You're being purposefully obtuse.
You know where that WTF code comes from? You, 10-20 years ago. You know, the inexperienced developer. If you have the opportunity, take a look at some code you wrote 5, 10, 15 years ago -- you'll be disgusted with yourself.
I've run in to quite a few of the idiots with whom I went to high-school. You know what? Some of them are surgeons. Some of them are pilots (or "airplane drivers"). Some of them are business owners or other business professionals.
Yes, and some of them are unskilled laborers -- the very category I would have put all of them in those many years ago. (When I was young, I thought myself exceptional as well. I chalk that up to youthful arrogance. I got over it. My self-worth is no longer defined by what I fancy myself as "good at".)
No, not everyone should write code or perform brain surgery. But that doesn't mean that most people are incapable of writing code or becoming skilled surgeons. Education and experience are what made the difference.
Programmers are not exceptional. You are not special because you're a programmer -- it's just a skill that you've learned and improved over time. Had you decided to pursue some other interest, you'd likely think yourself exceptional because of *that* skill.
Get over yourself. Really. It's not that impressive. Hell, most Slashdot users fancy themselves to be good programmers -- and many are better than you are or I am -- even a good number that are not or are no longer professional developers.
Programmers, the big daddy programmers are special and unique. Just like the engineers who created a ferrari or any other major achievement.
No, they're not. They are not special and unique.
Skill comes from experience -- it's as simple as that. The engineers who created a Ferrari? They're not special either -- engineering is a learned skill that, yes, anyone can learn. Grab the average auto mechanic and plop them in to a university engineering program and you'll have a competent engineer in a few years. A decade or so or work after that, and you'll have a great engineer. Some will be better than others, sure, but it's not a matter of intelligence -- it's a matter of dedication.
No one is born with a natural ability to write code or design car engines.
Programming itself doesn't require anything special. Designing does.
Guess what else is a learned skill? Design! Even better, it's a skill that can be taught! It doesn't take anything special -- just some education and experience.
I'd argue that it also takes desire and motivation - something not everyone will have.
Indeed, though that's true regardless of the skill at question. The same can be said for playing the piano, for example. The difference is that piano players don't fancy themselves geniuses above the average person!
It does also take a certain level of reasoning ability to become a good programmer.
Which, of course, is learned. Critical thinking and reasoning are not congenital -- they're learned skills.
or are they all just another load of the self-aggrandising bullshit that programmers like to surround themselves with
Just good old-fashioned egomania. I figure the ones here who think themselves exceptional are the ones who didn't go to college yet somehow manage to work in the industry. Lacking an education, and having no other skills, they try to build a mystique around their profession to insulate it and make themselves feel important.
By spreading the myth that you need to be special in some way to competently write code they think that others will also see them as more important or intelligent.
Mix that with a healthy dose of militant atheism and you've got this thread. See, chances are that if you're the vocal atheist type that you've turned science in to an ideology. Like many religious folks, they know little to nothing about their own faith, yet fancy themselves experts. This works for them as the motivations are the same: making themselves feel like they're exceptional.
"I'm already super-special because I can write code. I'm an atheist too, so I must understand everything important about physics, astronomy, biology, etc. Look at how much smarter I must be than the average person. I'm brillant" --Paula Bean
It's sad, really.
Anyone can become a programmer. Not everyone can become a GOOD programmer, or even a competent one.
Nonsense. All it takes to turn a non-programmer into a programmer, good programmer, and exceptional programmer is experience.
That's it. A little time is all it takes. Just like every other skill. Any idiot can learn to do what you do as well as you do it.
You are not special because you can program. You are not exceptional. You are the 21st century equivalent of an auto-mechanic.
What a bunch of egomaniacs.
However, having attempted to teach people to program before, I can tell you for a fact that you need at least a particular mindset for it
Having actually taught people to program (in a formal setting) I can tell you for a fact that you suck at teaching. It does require "a particular mindset" but that can be taught. Really, it's the only thing that needs to be taught to turn non-programmers in to programmers -- the rest is just details.
Having taught many idiots to program has shown me that any idiot can program. All it takes is a little bit of dedication -- just like learning any other skill.
I think it requires a certain level of intelligence as a minimum. Nothing incredibly special but above average
There you have it. You think being able to program makes you special in some way or indicates that you're above average.
Here's the truth: Any idiot can write code. Hell, half of Slashdot taught themselves to program when they were between the ages of 8-13.
All it takes is the will to learn something new. It's no different than learning to work on cars. Do you think auto-mechanics have these same discussions? No. They're more emotionally stable, apparently, than the average developer.
Yeah, just about anyone can learn to write computer programs. Just like every who has ever learned to write code, they'll get better and better as they gain experience
Being able to write computer programs does not make you special. Get over yourself.
It would appear so. A good attempt to mimic the style of Gene Ray, the worlds wisest human.
Those were good times. I needed to charge my 7290 and 8820 at most twice a week under heavy use.
My current BB will only go about two days between charges, three if it's a slow week.
How "It'll make it through a day" became a selling point is beyond me.
"Deaf culture" is the reason that the deaf community suffers from severe unemployment and illiteracy. Deaf culture is the reason so few deaf people pursue higher education. It's what keeps competent teachers and administrators out of deaf schools (you know, the ones who aren't "deaf enough"). Worst of all, it breeds fear and hatred; keeping the deaf community isolated.
Deaf culture is destroying any hope the deaf community has for a brighter future.
Deaf culture is a disease far worse than the disability. It needs to be choked out. It needs to disappear. Deaf culture is the REAL threat.
What you don't know is that user Beardo the Bearded is an old hippie who just never bothered to shave until 2004.
Needless to say, he's no longer bearded...
No. It seems that you're too sexy for science.
What Bell did was give us a way to check to see if those properties existed before the measurement. Experiments show Bell's inequality to be violated. You're still thinking in classical terms -- science moved on nearly 100 years ago.
Neuroscience will soon reveal all about the brain
No, it won't. It's not even remotely close.
A shame, really. OOP doesn't lend itself to modularity. Before OOP, we had many other approaches to modularity even languages where modularity was emphasized.
Different use I guess. I don't 'sync' either, but don't pull anything down over wifi. I swap SD cards for different content, like audio tapes.
Cheap, and tiny, MP3 player goes 10-12 hours on a AA battery. My phone stays off, and charged. Nothing is worse than competing for a free outlet at the airport for the few minutes I have to spare on a layover.
I wondered about that myself. I've been required to show my ID every time I've flown domestically.
I travel a lot, and wanted two batteries, not one.
I won't argue the storage point, but who uses their phone as an mp3 player? I have an mp3 player for that.
Indeed, though if you dig around you'll find that a great deal of the site isn't centered around design patterns.
Not entirely sure it's true, but it's certainly a pain to search up and down an inheritance tree to find where a function gets defined.
That's a different problem with so-called object oriented languages. Adele Goldberg sums it up: "In Smalltalk, everything happens somewhere else"
Other things to consider would be things like the circle-ellipse problem, the limits of hierarchies, etc. Really, there's a whole world of new problems caused by OPP. The question, of course, is does it improve code quality or developer productivity?
Not according to Potok, T. E., Vouk, M. & Rindos, A. (1999) Productivity Analysis of Object-Oriented Software Developed in a Commercial Environment Software - Practice and Experience, 29(10), pp 833-847
Other studies have come to similar conclusions. It seems like we're adding complexity for no practical benefit when we buy in to the OOP hype.
At least I'm in good company, OOP was dropped from the freshman curriculum at CMU. You may remember this from a few years ago: "Object-oriented programming is eliminated entirely from the introductory curriculum, because it is both anti-modular and anti-parallel by its very nature, and hence unsuitable for a modern CS curriculum."
Just for fun, this classic essay which has made quite a splash, despite it's origins as a blog post: Execution in the Kingdom of Nouns
I'm just tossing stuff out here. There's tons of stuff on the web and a few zillion discussions we could have. I don't even know where to begin, there isn't any focus. If you have an ACM DL subscription, there is enough reading to keep you busy for a few years.
Object oriented is passing methods around with data. All the other characteristics that you mentioned (encapsulation, inheritance, polymorphism) can, and do, exist outside an OOP paradigm.
Yup. Everyone seems to have their own definition. A quick google search and you'll see that the one I offer, and laugh at, is actually pretty common.
I'll give you this much, if OOP was limited to what you describe, it would cause far less harm than the abuses in the name of OOP causes today. Of course, we wouldn't call it OOP, we'd just use the term "object" like we say "record" or "int" without pretending it was anything more. I could get behind that.
Because it sounded like you might have something interesting to say on the topic. I like interesting conversations.
I have a lot to say on the subject, though I've found that it's not possible to have a productive discussion on Slashdot. :) If you're interested in the topic, I recommend that you check out some of the discussions on the c2 wiki -- lots of different perspectives and surprisingly productive dialog.
It's a consequence of not having a way to easily renumber your lines.
Back in ancient times, when unstructured BASIC was still king, there was the RENUM (sometimes RENUMBER) command -- that let you quickly and easily renumber your lines.
Or, you know, you could plan your projects better. Judicious use of GOSUB helped as well.
Curious then, what programming paradigm would you prefer?
OOP isn't a paradigm. Hell, it doesn't even have a coherent definition! I've seen moronic proponents, in defense of "the one true way", go so far as to say than any form of structure or modularity is OOP "by definition". Hmmm... Perhaps learning to program doesn't give you critical thinking skills after all...
Usually people "define" it by listing off encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. Too funny, as inheritance and encapsulation are fundamentally incompatible with one another (e.g. inheritance breaks encapsulation)
Don't bother mentioning things like modularity, as that was around long before the OOP hype -- a shame that OOP has spoiled a lot of development in that area.
Why are you commenting on my .sig anyway?
Believe it or not, this has been studied.
I can't seem to find the paper I wanted to reference, but here are a few others that might interest you:
The Effects of a LOGO Computer Programming Experience on Readiness for First Grade, Creativity, and Self Concept.
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ320159&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ320159
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu/76/6/1051/
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J025v04n02_07#preview
http://surface.syr.edu/eecs_etd/256/
Find a single legitimate publication of his that was peer-reviewed by non-morons.
Impossible. Any peer-reviewed publication would, by you, be considered illegitimate. Failing that, you'd assume the (anonymous) peer reviewers were morons.
No true Scottsman and all that...