OOP stunts learning

[Joshua Austin]

From what I have read about OOP and classes, the main purpose is to promote code re-usability.
With this in mind, think of what the side-effects of code re-usability are. Sure, it helps you organise code, but it does present a problem: It promotes stealing someone elses code, instead of learning how to code something for yourself. Thus you end up with programers who are increasingly lazy, and less experienced.

[Cindy Glass]

Silliness. Laziness is a job requirement for programmers.
You KNOW there was only one COBOL program ever written from scratch. All the rest were just copied and modified from that one .
Some of the best Legacy programmers that I know are those who know how to identify and steal code from somewhere else very efficiently .
So what has changed? Now they call it inheriting instead of stealing .

[Paul Stevens]

I am with Cindy on this one. That is the way it has always been. Code shells and templates in the olden times. Now we have frameworks and libraries.

[David O'Meara]

and if it's on the internet it's fair game.
Apparently there's no such thing as copyright on the internet

From Buffy:
Want. Have.

[Rufus BugleWeed]

Laziness, Hubris, and Impatience...
Three virtue of a programmer according to Larry Wall.
When I started programming we did it in assembly language with punched cards. IMHO, OOP is as neat as a remote control for the TV. That is, if it's done well.
[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Rufus Bugleweed ]

[Joshua Austin]

I am glad laziness is a common requirement Otherwise I would be in big trouble. I am very very lazy LOL.
But people still dont learn as much as they would by just writing the code themselves.
and yes, code copying (I guess stealing was a little harsh ) has been around for a while, but its so much easier to do with OOP thus its more common.
(As you can tell I am now BSing my answer because I have run out of arguments LOL)
[ September 09, 2002: Message edited by: Joshua Austin ]

[pamchau]

I think we should all go back to using languages like Perl and not use OOP at all. I have been teaching college programming classes for a while and I can tell you that the next generation of programs do not need any help being lazy, but I just the love the sound of a class when they have to learn about regular expressions! Most can't believe their eyes and they get such statifaction when they actually get a string formatted right! Oh my, I heard they are adding regular expressions to Java soon! Soon we can all learn how to make that regular expression groan!

[Shubhrajit Chatterjee]

While you are in college ... don't steal ... you won't learn much then...
In the industry steal as much as you can .. it will increase your productivity
Jokes apart, it is silly to write everything from scratch ... if you believe this, why don't you program your microprocessor with 1 and 0?

[Gregg Bolinger]

I think steal is too strong a word. I think borrow is a better term.
However, do you think Bill Gates is intellegent? I do. He was smart engough to borrow all his ideas. And now look at him.

[Michael Ernest]

It sounds to me like Joshua's aim is at skill and knowledge, rather than commercial success. My hat is off to that sentiment.
Learning is a great life goal. Every new thing you learn can be different from what you have learned so far. Unlike money, where one dollar is like any other, and one million the same as the next.
Of the two, knowledge is the one thing that people can all struggle to achieve and share in at the same time.

[Dirk Schreckmann]

But people still dont learn as much as they would by just writing the code themselves.
I disagree entirely. Programmers may not learn the same things that they'd otherwise learn, but they do learn new things that they'd otherwise not learn.
What is to "learn as much"? Does it require learning a set of specific details? Can it not be considered to "learn as much" or more when learning more about more abstract concepts (such as polymorphism and patterns)?
Today, I don't spend my time figuring out the best search algorithm for a given data structure. I know that someone else has already done that work and I can use their efforts to solve my problem while I learn about something new and different that the programmer that created the searching algorithm did not have time to learn. Who has learned more? Does it even make sense to ask who has learned more? Have we not both learned something?

[Dirk Schreckmann]

The caveman of time past probably knew how to survive in conditions that you today are abstracted from by some building designed and constructed by people you possibly never even met. Do you know how to build your home or do you just use it? If you don't know how to build it, does that mean that you know less? Did the caveman know more because he survived in more primitive conditions? Do these questions really make any sense? Perhaps y'all just learned and know different things.