anomaly

[zipher]

On Monday, May 11, 2015 at 10:44:51 AM UTC-5, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Mon, 11 May 2015 11:27 pm, Antoon Pardon wrote:
> 
> > The point is that all too often someone wants to defend a specific choice
> > the developers have made and cites some general rule or principle in
> > support, ignoring the fact that python breaks that rule/principle in other
> > area's.
> 
> "It's a free country, you can do what you like."
> 
> "No I can't, I'm not allowed to kill people."
> 
> Just because there are exceptions to a rule doesn't mean it isn't a general
> rule. A few exceptions are just exceptions, they don't invalidate the fact
> that "consenting adults" is a basic design principle of Python.

The solution to this is to find an overarching maxim that encompasses both.  This was already solved (in your example) with the Age they called the Enlightenment (and perhaps arguably with Kant).  The solution was that your liberty extends to the point another's begins -- a more scalable maxim than "freedom".

With OOP, the solution is not to slide by having sloppy design goals, it's to find a noble purpose.  OOP by itself has no goal other than to try to make a system of re-usable objects.  By itself it's like having a bow and arrow with no target.  I'm suggesting there's a target:  a data ecosystem for the exabytes of data that exists with the Internet -- not simulating graphical objects on the screen or trying to re-make the real-world in the virtual world.   These are missteps that perhaps can be explored in languages specially tailored for it (Simula, POV-ray, Erlang, etc.).

Mark