From: Mark Wilson <mwilson13@...>
Date: 2003-07-31T10:31:43+09:00
Subject: Re: MOO


On Wednesday, July 30, 2003, at 07:27 PM, james_b wrote:

> Mark Wilson wrote:
>>> [snip]
>> I think there are a couple of things going on here.
>> First, the human interface idea is that people first select an object 
>> and then decide what they want to do with that object. For example, 
>> one might select a word processing file and then open it, print it, 
>> email it, convert it, etc.
>
> True, perhaps, but there are many times people know they want to do 
> something, but don't yet know how to accomplish it; they don't know 
> the exact objects to involve.  The emphasis is on the action, not the 
> object.

I see your point. I do think it's usually easier to learn objects first 
and then actions (messages to invoke a method), because each object can 
have a multitude of methods. However, to its great credit, Ruby also 
makes it easier to think of a method and then find the object that 
implements it (with the input and output desired).

>
>> Second, there is the linguistic factor. I think it is not so much 
>> that you read left to right but that English sentences are formed in 
>> subject-verb-object order. The subject is, perhaps, the controller 
>> part of the program, the verb is the method and the object is ... the 
>> object. The order in object oriented programming languages is 
>> (always?) subject-object-verb. Interestingly, this is also the order 
>> in Korean and Japanese (and a few other languages).
>
> Interesting then that we aren't talking about KleinSpreche (pardon my 
> language mangling!), and why I'm curious abut the effects of shifting 
> the focus from object to message.

Forgive my ignorance, but I don't understand the meaning of your 
reference to that other pure object-oriented language :-)

> (Also interesting is that you say "the verb is the method" rather than 
> "the verb is the message.")

I agree. I do group message and method together. I think this arises 
from me not yet being comfortable with objects communicating with each 
other -- my programs usually involve a single controller that handles 
all messaging (method calls).

> Kay's comments suggest that he was always more interested in the 
> messaging aspect than the object part, and that the term 
> "object-oriented" was something of an unfortunate buzzword.  The OO 
> part being a good way to implement a messaging environment, not so 
> much an end in itself. The message is the medium.

I'll think about this.

Regards,

Mark