Well-esteemed Philipp Lenssen gives in Programming Truth and Fiction a set of false programming stereotypes and misconceptions, and then sets out to correct them. However, he is not correct in all cases. I take issue with the following in particular:

A complicated class structure only shows the programmer did a quality job. Inheritance is a necessary complexity, and simply can’t be overused.

Besides that quality code can be written without the aid of OOP, see Wordpress as an example of so-called “bad” code, or many web scripting solutions, I believe inheritence can actually be terribly overused. For example, if you model every possible permutation of a thing into a class structure as the “sum of its parts:”

Yes, you can define a car as the sum of a Red Toyota 8 Cylinder Engine. And you can say, hmm, all sorts of engines are an engine, and recursively apply this principle to all the parts of the car, leading to what? A huge mess. OOP can be taken to a frightful and useless extreme.

There’s a huge difference between scripting languages and programming languages.

First, ignoring that a scripting language is intended for a completely different purpose than a programing language, I have to point out that as long as both languages are Turing complete, they are reducible to one another, and therefore there’s technically no difference between them.

Programming is for nerds! If you want to teach it, wait until 9th grade and use Java. Seriously.

No. Start at 2 and put an SML interpreter on the locks of their bedroom doors and leave them datastructure puzzles.

5 Responses to “Programming Truth and Fiction Revisited”

1. hmm says:

   3/30/2006 at 6:15 am

   “the whole article is satire”

   Some of it definatly seems so, though “Curly brackets must always go in the next line” is definatley true!

   And all large apps (like wordpress) should use OOP, it’s extemely annoying when they dont (adding mods takes days not hours).

   OOP can be taken to an extreme, but so can ‘linear’ code,

   toy->transport->car is good!
   toy->transport->car->wheel->bolt is over the top.

   $car = func. toy(‘car’, ‘red’, ‘..’, ‘…’, ‘…’, ‘…’, ‘…’);

   then pages and pages of func.s on the car is pointless!

   Reply
2. Wes says:

   2/16/2006 at 10:41 am

   You apparently lack a satire detector.
   My guess is that you’re addicted to slashdot.

   Reply
3. z says:

   2/16/2006 at 12:13 am

   Dude, the whole article is satire.

   Or Philipp is a moron.

   Take your pick.

   Reply
4. Elliott Back says:

   2/15/2006 at 9:28 pm

   Some of it clearly is, and some of it is deceptively not

   Reply
5. Eric says:

   2/15/2006 at 9:18 pm

   You’ve been duped. The article was intended as satire (or at least I hope it was!).

   Reply