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Not quite a Swell FLOOP?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg37430] Not quite a Swell FLOOP?
• From: "Steven T. Hatton" <hattons at globalsymmetry.com>
• Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 03:40:58 -0500 (EST)
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

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."