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Re: Not quite a Swell FLOOP?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg37554] Re: Not quite a Swell FLOOP?
• From: Jens-Peer Kuska <kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de>
• Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2002 04:59:10 -0500 (EST)
• Organization: Universitaet Leipzig
• References: <apvbk6$rmb$1@smc.vnet.net>
• Reply-to: kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Hi,

NO ! objects "'should' not be  here". 

You are using a functional programming language
that is much better than  OOP can ever be.

OOP is for data & data types. 

The natural way of thinking is:
"I wish to do something" and you exectue the function that
does this "something".

and not
"What data are needed to do the job and what 
else can I do with the data?"

Since Mathematica know nothing about data types
it is useless to add member-functions to the
non existing data types.

But you can "overload" an existing function 
and extend it's usage.

Regards
  Jens

"Steven T. Hatton" wrote:
> 
> I must admit, Mathematica looks a lot different to me after having done some
> real programming in Java, than it did a few years ago.  I understand it much
> better, but I also find myself grasping for things that don't seem to be
> native to the product/language.
> 
> There seems to be virtually no native support for OOP in Mathematica. Am I
> understanding things correctly?  Dr. Mäder (I'm being a bit stubborn here -
> use UTF-8) provides his own object package with his Computer Science with
> Mathematica.  I haven't worked with yet, but by looking it over, it seems a
> bit kluged ( http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=kluge
> ).  I don't mean to upbraid Dr. Mäder's attempt to add functionality which
> probably should be a native part of the Mathematica language.  Perhaps I'll
> get used to the approach he has used, but for now, I must say, it seems
> awkward.  My guess is Dr. Mäder did the best that could be expected with the
> constraints under which he was working.
> 
> It is inconceivable to me that I am the first person to question the lack of
> native OO support in Mathematica.  There must be a history of discussion on
> this topic.  Is anybody aware of a record of such?  Am I not understanding
> things correctly?  Do others believe OO support is lacking in Mathematica,
> and really 'should' be here?
> --
> STH
> Hatton's Law:
> "There is only One inviolable Law."

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Re: Not quite a Swell FLOOP?
    • From: "Hermann Schmitt" <schmitther@netcologne.de>