The OOP Debate Rages On….

(see also the Letters Pages in issues #2 and #3)

Sir,

I found Dermot's OOP article interesting (along with the other Bytegeist columns so far) mainly because it is related to some of the research I'm involved in as part of my PhD - namely working out how to manage change in software development projects.

Using data collected from software development projects as part the Sheffield Software Engineering Observatory at the University Of Sheffield  I have been attempting to define the process of change within these projects. To do this it is necessary to identify what has changed; Dermot's 'limitation' of OOP is one of many examples of changes that don't go as planned. Essentially in this case the issue is to do with developers assuming that behaviour is inherited as well as the interface.

Whilst this is regrettable, object oriented languages have addressed issues highlighted by Parnas and others in the ‘70s and without them we would not have been able to build many of today’s applications. However as programming projects become increasingly more complex it is becoming clear that new paradigms for programming will be required, to overcome the limitations of OOP

Chris Thomson
http://www.codepilots.com/

Sir,

When people use anecdotal experience to sway others about OOP religion I refer to quotes that Alan Kay has given. 

"I invented the term 'object oriented programming' and I can tell you I didn't have C++ in mind"

"As far as I can tell-that most undergraduate degrees in computer science these days are basically Java vocational training. I’ve heard complaints from even mighty Stanford University with its illustrious faculty that basically the undergraduate computer science program is little more than Java certification." 

I think there is ample scientific software engineering evidence in the books and seminal works by T. Capers Jones to clearly document that true object oriented languages are effective and do offer many benefits.

Ed Klimas
http://www.LineaEngineering.com

Wot, No Astronomy?

What happened to the astronomy? I discovered Bitwise in June when you had reviews of The Sky and SkyMap Pro. I assumed you’d be carrying reviews of more astronomy software in future - but so far nothing! Even though I’ve enjoyed some of the programming features I would really like to see you covering a bigger variety of other types of software - especially astronomy…

Martin G. Redley

(You may like to know that we have a review of Cartes du Ciel this month - Ed.)