Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

[Wayne Brehaut]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 07:47:20 -0000, bonnie at macbird.com wrote:

>On Jul 13, 3:20 pm, Wayne Brehaut <wbreh... at mcsnet.ca> wrote:
>> On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 06:01:56 +0200, Bruno Desthuilliers
>>
>> <bdesth.quelquech... at free.quelquepart.fr> wrote:
>> >Chris Carlen a écrit :
>> >> Hi:
>>
>> >>  From what I've read of OOP, I don't get it.  I have also found some
>> >> articles profoundly critical of OOP.  I tend to relate to these articles.
>>
>> === 8< ===

=== 8< ===

>> Under a claim of Academic Impunity (or was that "Immunity"), here's
>> another historical tid-bit.  In a previous empolyment we once had a
>> faculty applicant from CalTech who knew we were using Simula as our
>> introductory and core language in our CS program, so he visited Xerox
>> PARC before coming for his inteview.  His estimate ofAlan Kayand
>> Smalltalk at that time (early 80s) was that "They wanted to implement
>> Simula but didn't understand it--so they invented Smalltalk and now
>> don't understand _it_!"
>>
>> wwwayne
>>
>> === 8< ===
>
>A couple of notes on this post.
>
>Alan Kay has always publicly credited Simula as the direct inspiration
>for Smalltalk, and if you know the man and his work, this implication
>of taking credit for the first OOP language is not true, it is a
>credit assigned to him by others, and one which he usually rights when
>confronted with it.

I know this, and was perhaps a little too flippant in my all-inclusive
statement "self-serving propaganda from Xerox PARC,Alan Kay, and
Smalltalk adherents everywhere!", for which I apologize. But it was
made with humorous intent, as I had hoped the opening "Oh you
young'uns, not versed in The Ancient Lore, but filled with
self-serving propaganda..." would imply.

A more accurate and unhumorous statement of my opinion is that it is
Smalltalk adherents who know virtually nothing of the history of
OOP--and even some who do--who  did and still do make such claims,
both personally and in the published literature of OOP. 

And my statement about a prospective faculty member's opinion was just
that: a historical anecdote, and the expression of an early 80s
opinion by a professional CS professor and researcher in formal
semantics  (which may have been part of his distrust of the Smalltalk
team's "understanding" of Smalltalk) .  The opinion he expressed was
his and not my own, and  I was just recording (what I thought might
be) an amusing anecdote in a context in which I thought it
appropriate: discussion of what OOP is, and after Bruno made the
claim: "OO is about machines - at least as conceveid by Alan Key, who
invented the term and most of the concept."   I don't think my
recording it here should be construed as my opinion of either
Smalltalk or its creators (at that time or now). 

As often happens in many arenas, the creator of an idea can lose
control to the flock, and many publications can get accepted if
referrees themselves don't know the facts or take care to check them
before recommending publication--which probably explains why so many
publications (especially in conference proceedings) on OOP  in the 80s
and 90s completely omitted any mention of Simula: so much so that I
once intended writing a paper on "Ignorance of Simula Considered
Harmful." 

On the other hand, anytyhing you may have inferred about my distaste
for those who doesn't bother to learn anything of the history of a
subject, then make  false or misleading claims, and don't bother to
correct themselves when questioned, is true. 

>You may be confused with the fact that "object oriented
>programming"was a term which I believe was first used by Alan and his
>group at PARC, so perhaps the coining of the term is what is being
>referenced by others.

No, I have been at more than one CS (or related area) conference where
a Smalltalk aficionado has stated unequivocally that Kay invented OOP
and that Smalltalk was the first OOPL. The last I recall for sure was
WebNet 2000, where a (quite young) presenter on Squeak made that
statement, and was not at all certain what Simula was when I asked
whether it might actually have been the first more  than 10 years
before Smalltalk 80.   So his claim, and that of many others,
explicitly or implicitly, is that not only the term, but most (or all)
of the concept, and (often) the first implementation of OOP was by Kay
and his Xerox PARC team in Smalltalk 80.

>Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the tone of your post conveys an animosity
>that did not exist between the original Smalltalk and Simula
>inventors; Nygard and Kay were good friends, and admired each others'
>work very much.

Yes, you are very much mistaken (as I note above), and appear not to
have understood the intended humorous  tone of my posting.  

wwwayne

>
>Bonnie MacBird
>