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Re: Re: OOP in Mathematica

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg38641] Re: [mg38620] Re: OOP in Mathematica
• From: "Hermann Schmitt" <schmitther at netcologne.de>
• Date: Fri, 3 Jan 2003 00:14:55 -0500 (EST)
• References: <D528A86C-1ABC-11D7-B88E-00039311C1CC@mimuw.edu.pl> <aur8s0$8g7$1@smc.vnet.net> <200301010839.DAA21858@smc.vnet.net>
• Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

Hello,

I think, that Orestis has a different conception of OO than I. I want to
draw the attention to an aspect of OO, which is apparently ignored by
Orestis:
OO may be seen as a medium to make code available in an efficient way.
My kind of class definition (see www.schmitther.de) is based on the same
intention as the Mathemica package concept and is similar to this. Most
Mathematica packages could be even replaced by class definitions. The class
concept apparently includes the package concept.
Hermann Schmitt.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Orestis Vantzos" <atelesforos at hotmail.com>
To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
Subject: [mg38641] [mg38620] Re: OOP in Mathematica


> Wow, Steve is definitely overwhelming...
> Anyway, I am both a mathematician and an experienced(IMHO) Mathematica
> user, and I have expressed my general view of OOP-MMA many times...I
> won't repeat it here.
> I must note though, that I first studied OOP in order to implement it
> in Mathematica; I had no previous experience of it! I saw it through a
> Mathematica user's view and found it interesting enough to devote a
> lot of my time to it.
> Anyway, I have two points to make:
> a) Having studied half a dozen OOP subparadigms, I find the 'pure OOP'
> and 'prototyping model' concepts to be the most promising.
> Since noone is seriously suggesting that we make Mathematica, as it
> is, purely OOP-based, my suggestion is that we can 'translate' the
> fundamental Mathematica operations in OOP language and make our OOP subset of
> the language as 'pure' as possible, thus enabling one to think
> uniformly about OOP-MMA. I have repeatedly described in this forum,
> how the "symbols evoke rules" model can be understood in terms of
> message passing. My favourite 'pure OOP' language is, ofcourse, Ruby.
> With its patterns, it is very reminiscent of Mathematica..check it out
> at www.ruby-lang.org ..
> The 'prototyping model' dictates that we don't really need any
> classes, simply objects that receive messages and, under certain
> conditions, pass them to other objects called 'delegates'. I find this
> very agreeable, given Mathematica's symbols and their evident lack of
> hierarchy. It seems to me that the designers meant for a rather
> 'democratic' environment, where symbols are created equal be they
> constants,procedures,functions or mere options. Self is a great
> implementation of 'delegation OOP' and I found its documentation
> invaluable (research.sun.com/research/self/).
> b) OOP-MMA attempts this far have completely ignored Mathematica's own
> proramming culture, a fact which accounts IMHO for their pure
> reception from the Mathematica community. I think that we must search for a
> 'native way' for OOP to be implemented in Mathematica; Mathematica should not
> just be a hidden layer on which objects live, but objects should be
> made to fit in Mathematica's worldview instead. We should not try to
> 'simulate' OOP over Mathematica, but bring forth the hidden 'objectiveness' of
> Mathematica. Therefore, I disagree with Steve on one thing: an OOP-MMA
> should initially focus on Mathematica applications and not in
> cooperation/translation of Mathematica code in other languages, especially
> C++/Java which are very alien to Mathematica's way of programming. My
> experience is that when OOP-procedural models mix with Mathematica, havoc is
> ensured;-). At a later stage we could begin to interface with (or even
> migrate objects to) scripting languages like Ruby or even Java. I
> would like to keep the discussion to much fundamental issues for now
> though... like 'what does 'object' mean in Mathematica?'
>
> Orestis
>

• References:
  • Re: OOP in Mathematica
    • From: atelesforos@hotmail.com (Orestis Vantzos)