Re:OO is not Computing, Newer is not More modern
by xyzzyz on Monday April 30, 2012 @09:06AM
(#3909031)
I think that the point here is that while data structures are objects, not every object should act like a data structure.
Re:OO is not Computing, Newer is not More modern
by groovy2shoes on Monday April 30, 2012 @10:57AM
(#3909509)
Keep in mind that when Alan Kay says "object" he means something different from programmers-at-large. To the general population of programmers, an object is just a data structure that's been bundled with some behavior. To Kay, an object is a computational entity that can only send/receive messages (what Carl Hewitt called an actor even before Smalltalk was on the scene). In Kay's mind, objects do not expose state the way they commonly do in the mainstream.
Re:OO is not Computing, Newer is not More modern
by fauigerzigerk on Monday April 30, 2012 @09:08AM
(#3909038)
That's a much better way of putting it than the original quote.
That may be because data structures is what we actually need. Data structures largely determine the computational complexity of operations and I think it makes little sense to act as if we could always think in terms of abstract responsibilities, interfaces, encapsulation, message passing, etc.
These things are useful organizational principles for coping with large systems, but at the core of most large systems is some algorithmic transformation of one data structure into another.