fodder for a multi-topic flame-war?

Post #7,953 by tablizer 9/7/01 4:10:41 PM Reply	fodder for a multi-topic flame-war? [link\|http://www.rae.org/objects.html\| [link\|http://www.rae.org/objects.html\|http://www.rae.org/objects.html]] ________________ oop.ismad.com
Post #7,968 by Ashton 9/7/01 6:58:01 PM Reply	Not even a family spat.. Just another case of, "when you learn to use a hammer, everything looks like a -" Gawd as - a "programmer", but one like Mozart (many of whose compositions were written down as conceived and.. needed no alteration). It's just more of, "when you learn to use Boolean algebra, everything looks er 'logical' -" (We all know that homo-sap sprang from Zeus's forehead, right after that er Goddess: call us the 'afterbirth' - the amniotic sac.. just lookin' fer some [content]. Somewhere. Mostly, just "graspin at straws") The Truth shall make you free, but first it will piss you off. Gloria Steinem
Post #7,970 by JayMehaffey 9/7/01 7:51:37 PM Reply	Not likely The author is to ignorant of both real programming and real biology to even make the comparison correctly let alone make a significant point. He make a big deal about life having no legacy code, but (given our current understanding) that is simply wrong. Upwards of half the genetic code may be nothing more then junk code, commented out but not removed. He trys to handwave away mutation by proclaiming all mutations harmful, trying to draw a connection between conventional computer bugs and mutations. This ignores the fundamental differences between genetic coding and conventional computer coding, and also ignores the fact that there are computer systems designed to evolve code through a mutation/selection cycle. He trys to draw a parallel between DNA coding and OO computer programming, but computer programming isn't OO in the sense of the word that something like C++ is. If anything, DNA coding is more like Forth or Lisp, where there are a handful of hardwired language components and the rest of the language is built by constructing routines out of older routines and those hardwired basic elements. His whole argument doesn't make any sense at it's core, and contains numerious gross distortions of fact. Jay
Post #7,977 by boxley 9/7/01 11:35:32 PM Reply	my 2 cents cant get there from here. DNA stranding is important but so is gravity, water, oxygen etc. We are very fragile beings. Most of us in the z.iwethey family need to have an ambient temp of >+20 degrees farenheit and <108 degrees farenheit or we whine excessivly, we must consume at least 2k average of calories to survive (and if everyone I havnt met follows the trend make that 3k calories) to survive in comfort. If electricity fails we again are whining in the dark hoping our laptop batteries hold out. Naa, dna is a fluke not design. It is the injection of energy into the mass that is unique, some call it a soul others a concience, whatever. It is that sparc which makes us unique, not the wetware. thanx, bill why did god give us a talleywhacker and a trigger finger if he didnt want us to use them? Randy Wayne White
Post #7,990 by static 9/8/01 5:32:14 AM Reply	He gets stuff wrong. Assembler is not "just above" machine code: it is machine code but with meaningful mnemonics. Also, people have ported languages like FORTRAN and SNOBOL4 to newer environments so they can keep using them. Red Hat 7.1 has a Fortran compiler, for instance. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #8,047 by wharris2 9/9/01 7:08:59 AM Reply	That's not all he has wrong For example, he has a mistaken concept of objects. I saw that same mindset when I was working with Powerbuilder programmers. A widget on a Windows screen is not an object, in terms of object-oriented programming. Setting properties on a Windows widget is fine, but that's not necessarily an object. And his laughable characterization of being able to create in hours what used to take weeks or months.... pathetic. Even a rapid development environment like Visual Basic takes time and skill to create a good applicatiion, not just a prototype. The worst Visual Basic programmers are those who point and click their way into an application. I was with a company that spent months (at least) digging itself out of point-and-click applications. French Zombies are zapping me with lasers!
Post #8,068 by static 9/9/01 9:30:59 PM Reply	Yes, I meant to say that, too. I did some quite extensive programming in VB1 and creating effective applications is not a walk in the park. Some of the most effective and widely used ones I wrote for my employer were originally for my own use! I also meant to comment that it is possible to write object-oriented assembler: but you need a good macro assembler and a number of implementation details you have to manage yourself but it is not that hard. I've even got a book on just how to do it. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"

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