What are OOP's Jargons and Complexities?

[Paul McGuire]

Is this supposed to be some sort of wake-up call or call-to-arms to all
the CS lemmings who have been hoodwinked by Sun into the realm of
jargon over substance?

Please do some informed research and homework before spouting off with
such blather.  Sun Microsystems is hardly The Great Satan of OOP,
trying to foist object-speak on the rest of humanity.  The object
concepts of classes, methods, instances, inheritance, polymorphism,
etc. were already well on their way into the CS consciousness before
Java came on the scene.  To attempt to relate the emergence of object
concepts as starting with Java simply illustrates a lack of historical
awareness.  To omit so obvious a Java precursor as Smalltalk seriously
undermines any authority you may have once had on this topic.

It is easy to attack "terminology" as "jargon," but in fact, precise
definitions of terms help improve communication of complex concepts.
Unfortunately, some of the concepts *are* complex - we just recently on
this forum had someone ask about "polymorphism" when what they really
meant was "overloaded method signatures."  (It is even more unfortunate
that language features such as overloaded method signatures and
operator overloading get equated with OOP, simply because OO language
XYZ supports them.)  I would say that terminology becomes jargon when
it introduces new terms that do not really help describe any new
concepts, but simply raise an arbitrary barrier to new students of the
field.  And *any* complex field's terminology will be perceived as
jargon to those who have not done adequate study - are you about to
begin a parallel crusade to attack the jargon-spewing conspiracy among
quantum physicists, what with their terms of top, down, spin, charm,
muon, meson, lepton, etc.?

Your complaint about Java requiring all code to reside in a class is
not new.  It is a common newbie issue that one has to get past "static
void main(string[] args)" just to do a simple "Hello, World!".  But
this seems to be a minor point for someone as authoritative as yourself
to waste over 1000 words on.  All computing languages have good and bad
features.  Determining whether Java's "classes-only" language design is
"good" or "bad" is something of a point of view - let it go that some
folks find it overly purist and a nuisance, while others like the
uniformity of implementation.

You certainly seem to have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for these
topics.  It would be nice if you could find a way to illuminate and
educate, without falling prey to the urge to pontificate.  If you
really have some points to make, put away the breathless and profane
debate style - it just gets in the way of anything you're trying to
say.  Really, we are *mostly* adults here, and can make up our own
minds on most things.

-- Paul