Subj : Re: Change Patterns (was: Polymorphism sucks)
To   : comp.programming,comp.object
From : Chris Sonnack
Date : Thu Aug 25 2005 11:37 am

Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t writes:

>> ... programmers shouldn't design solutions that address a specific
>> problem in a specific way, but should abstract the problem and solve
>> it in the most general way possible.
> 
> You present a false dichotomy between one extreme and the other.

No, that's your perception and misunderstanding.

>> *Conceptually*, which is the whole point of OOP, code and data are
>> bound, and there are languages that don't work that way.
> 
> There are two possible conclusions to that:

No, there are many possible conclusions to that.

> -1- Java isn't an object-oriented language at all, it's a
>     class-oriented language, because you can't define arbitrarily
>     different methods for each instance of a class which would be
>     needed to satisfy the definition of OOP.

> -2- The definition of OOP is wrong. OOP doesn't match methods to
>     instances, it matches methods to classes.
> You pick which.

I pick neither.  OO is not a well-defined term with a well-defined
meaning.  It applies to a general *class* (pun not really intended)
of things.


>>> Here's a good mantra for all software people:  REFACTOR
>> 
>> It's a great mantra and one I apply to my personal projects.  In the
>> business world, things move too fast, so you need to get it as right
>> as possible up front.  Odds are very much against you revisiting it
>> again (unless you really screwed it up the first time).
> 
> If you were given a week (five workdays) to finish some module of a
> project, and you got a rough prototype finished and working in one day,
> but then you realized you could refactor it to be much better, would
> you spend the next day refactoring it, and turn it in three days early,
> or would you turn in the rough version at the end of the first day,
> four days early?

Would I turn in a rough prototype as a complete project?  Only if I
had suffered extreme brain death.

And you've asked the wrong question anyway.  To me refactoring is when
you revisit *completed* code, and that doesn't often happen in a
commercial environment.  In fact, it's famous among programmers to
be very careful about whipping up quickfix projects, because they
tend to have a life beyond your expectations (in other words, try to
get it as right as possible first go).

Refactoring a work in progress is, to me, just development, and I've
been "re-doing" my designs since long before "refactoring" was coined.

> I don't consider getting the first rough draft working in very short
> time, so that you then understand better what's going on, to be
> screwing it up.

Duh.  That obviously wasn't what I meant.

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