On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
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On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
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Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
#2if the only reason to embraced objective-j is its support for an (apparently) more "natural" means of OO programming, then to me that isn't a reason at all. how many people are modelling client software these days strictly by virtue of OO techniques? i'd go as far as to say OO is dead. i much prefer something like jQuery which doesn't get hung up on methodologies, instead looking to adapt better to the specific task at hand.
my guess is that objective-j is DOA. the pool of objective-c programmers is not a motivating factor...i'm not even sure there are many people who really love objective-c. indeed i would offer that the "leaky abstraction" is that which tries to graft one so-so language on top of another so-so language. just man up and use javascript for what it is.
Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
#3if the only reason to embraced objective-j is its support for an (apparently) more "natural" means of OO programming, then to me that isn't a reason at all. how many people are modelling client software these days strictly by virtue of OO techniques? i'd go as far as to say OO is dead. i much prefer something like jQuery which doesn't get hung up on methodologies, instead looking to adapt better to the specific task…
I can't help but feel you did not read this post. Simply saying Obj-J is a "leaky abstraction" is meaningless, and yet you offer no examples of how the abstraction leaks (or why its actually problematic).
On top of that, you seem dedicated to the argument that Objective-C is a bad language, and that Objective-J is silly for wanting to re-implement it. Of course, as mentioned in the post, that was in no way the goal of Objective-J. The actual language isn't the point.
Separately, Objective-C is a great language, and plenty of people love it. More every day thanks to the iPhone. Can you give me three reasons why you don't like it?
Finally, claiming OO programming is dead is nonsensical. Java is by far the world's most popular programming language. Right below it you'll find C++ and C#. Three strictly OO languages. Not to mention the fact that two of the three most popular JavaScript libraries build in classical inheritance.
Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
#4if the only reason to embraced objective-j is its support for an (apparently) more "natural" means of OO programming, then to me that isn't a reason at all. how many people are modelling client software these days strictly by virtue of OO techniques? i'd go as far as to say OO is dead. i much prefer something like jQuery which doesn't get hung up on methodologies, instead looking to adapt better to the specific task…
I certainly agree with the "man up" sentiment. That's my complaint about GWT and Pyjamas. But jquery and YUI and prototype all add these OOP features in different ways. Objective-j is still javascript. It's not compiled, it's just uniquely funny-looking. (Note: there are advantages to a single-language stack, and compilation is not the end of the world.)
As it happens, the javascript language is incredibly flexible and expressive. Maybe we in the js community should man up and accept that there are many ways to skin the DOM cat. They may look rather different from one another, but they're all javascript.
Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
#5The author is against language features implemented as a library. However, the drawbacks he points to are really a lack of community programming conventions. If there were an agreed on standard Javascript way to do things like traditional OO class based inheritance, then there wouldn't be the problems he cites. Having such conventions encoded as syntax would reduce some of the power of Javascript. The fact that you can implement your own domain-specific mini-language is very powerful.
This is really pointing back to the old "Cathedral vs. Bazaar" dichotomy.
Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
#6The author is against language features implemented as a library. However, the drawbacks he points to are really a lack of community programming conventions. If there were an agreed on standard Javascript way to do things like traditional OO class based inheritance, then there wouldn't be the problems he cites. Having such conventions encoded as syntax would reduce some of the power of Javascript. The fact that you c…
There is also the issue that implementing things like method_missing and import are prohibitively difficult without new syntax.
Objective-J's code importer is one of the more complex pieces (as it manages to do so completely asynchronously). All the approaches that use a simple JavaScript function to grab code, like grab_and_eval("file.js") are forced to happen synchronously (since you have to guarantee that the code is evaled before the next line). Without some sort of lexing support, its really not possible to both grab files asynchronously and also be able to continue executing.
Also, as stated in the article, you can't intercept JavaScript method calls, so if you want something like method missing you're forced to do something like:
call_method_or_send_method_missing(object, "method_name")
And again, since Objective-J is a proper superset of JavaScript, it doesn't lose any of its powerful features.
Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
#7if the only reason to embraced objective-j is its support for an (apparently) more "natural" means of OO programming, then to me that isn't a reason at all. how many people are modelling client software these days strictly by virtue of OO techniques? i'd go as far as to say OO is dead. i much prefer something like jQuery which doesn't get hung up on methodologies, instead looking to adapt better to the specific task…
I can't help but feel you did not read this post. Simply saying Obj-J is a "leaky abstraction" is meaningless, and yet you offer no examples of how the abstraction leaks (or why its actually problematic). On top of that, you seem dedicated to the argument that Objective-C is a bad language, and that Objective-J is silly for wanting to re-implement it. Of course, as mentioned in the post, that was in no way the goal o…
Separately, Objective-C is a great language, and plenty of people love it
so much so that its almost impossible to find it being put to use outside of places apple forces it. and before you say "gnustep"...no one uses that
Can you give me three reasons why you don't like it?
1. goofy/eyes-bleed syntax
2. i don't care about OO
3. i'll think of something later
Finally, claiming OO programming is dead is nonsensical. Java is by far the world's most popular programming language.
java is a ployglot language. they're busy now trying to turn it into a hybrid-functional language...just like c#, the other kitchen-sink language
and c++ was designed from the ground-up to be multi-paradigm, this is all over everything stroustrup says about it
Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
#8if the only reason to embraced objective-j is its support for an (apparently) more "natural" means of OO programming, then to me that isn't a reason at all. how many people are modelling client software these days strictly by virtue of OO techniques? i'd go as far as to say OO is dead. i much prefer something like jQuery which doesn't get hung up on methodologies, instead looking to adapt better to the specific task…
I certainly agree with the "man up" sentiment. That's my complaint about GWT and Pyjamas. But jquery and YUI and prototype all add these OOP features in different ways. Objective-j is still javascript. It's not compiled, it's just uniquely funny-looking. (Note: there are advantages to a single-language stack, and compilation is not the end of the world.) As it happens, the javascript language is incredibly flexible a…
to me jquery feels less heavy-handed about the abstraction. every abstraction has a price, i tend to avoid them unless they have a demonstrated value. to me, OO has no demonstrated value
to be honest, i see the basis of objective-j born from some notion that apple does things right so naturally we all want to do things they way they do...but objective c sucks (having coded in it), and i have no idea why people would want to muck up another stack by pasting objective c onto it
Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
#9The author is against language features implemented as a library. However, the drawbacks he points to are really a lack of community programming conventions. If there were an agreed on standard Javascript way to do things like traditional OO class based inheritance, then there wouldn't be the problems he cites. Having such conventions encoded as syntax would reduce some of the power of Javascript. The fact that you c…
There is also the issue that implementing things like method_missing and import are prohibitively difficult without new syntax. Objective-J's code importer is one of the more complex pieces (as it manages to do so completely asynchronously). All the approaches that use a simple JavaScript function to grab code, like grab_and_eval("file.js") are forced to happen synchronously (since you have to guarantee that the code…
And again, since Objective-J is a proper superset of JavaScript
really? what can it do that js can't do?
Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't help but feel you did not read this post. Simply saying Obj-J is a "leaky abstraction" is meaningless, and yet you offer no examples of how the abstraction leaks (or why its actually problematic). On top of that, you seem dedicated to the argument that Objective-C is a bad language, and that Objective-J is silly for wanting to re-implement it. Of course, as mentioned in the post, that was in no way the goal o…
Separately, Objective-C is a great language, and plenty of people love it so much so that its almost impossible to find it being put to use outside of places apple forces it. and before you say "gnustep"...no one uses that Can you give me three reasons why you don't like it? 1. goofy/eyes-bleed syntax 2. i don't care about OO 3. i'll think of something later Finally, claiming OO programming is dead is nonsensical. Ja…
"1. goofy/eyes-bleed syntax"
This is almost always an indication that a programming language critic has nothing really thoughtful to say. Same with Lisp and S-expressions.
If I may paraphrase: "It's slightly different than what I'm used to, therefor I despise it."