RE: framework question - OO is useless

> From: Marc Logemann
> 
> Its clear to me that you dont understand the concept of OO

Interesting.  Let's see here.  I teach Java.  I teach servlets and JSP.
I've written two commercially successful Java-based products.  I write
books on using Java.  I write columns on using Java.  What exactly is it
I don't understand, Marc?


> but this
> doesnt surprise me, i only know few people coming from the iSeries/RPG
> world that reached an acceptable understanding of OO. Most of them
> think they know what OO is, but still code and think procedural.

Okay, be specific.  What is it that I don't understand?  I understand
everything that has to do with Java.  I understand the concepts of
inheritance and polymorphism (I actually taught a seminar on that to IBM
in Tel Aviv, back in 1999), and I understand where strict object
hierarchies work and where they fail.


>  > Namespaces can be done in procedural code just as easily. IBM
allows
>  > long, mixed-case names for procedures, so it's quite easy to do
your
> own
>  > namespace. I don't look to the language to enforce my naming
>  > conventions.
> 
> This is the most useless proposal to namespaces i have ever heard.
This
> has nothing to do with namespaces,
> its more a coding convention in functional programming.

Namespaces are just a language feature.  Namespaces have some advantages
and some disadvantages to the procedure naming I mentioned.  I'm not
suggesting that procedure naming has all the benefits of namespaces, I'm
just suggesting that namespaces don't really do much for RPG
programmers.


> > Marc, I get the idea you've never actually coded in a production
> > environment.  What you call "quick hacking" I call responding to
> > external business decisions.
> 
> Joe, if i were you, i wouldnt throw out comments like this all over
the
> time.
> I wont argument my skills to you, I dont have to stand for that.

Actually, if you want any credibility with me, you will have to
establish your credentials.  I'm comfortable explaining my background
and why that gives me some justification for my opinions.  So far,
you've yet to do so.  You're just sort of telling me "OO is best".  Even
the OO guys don't do that.  And in any event, you're the one who started
the personal crap with the "quick hack" comment.


> Oh yeah, i saw many projects in RPG where you can quickly create
something
> because the 3rd party library base is so huge.

The third party package deal is beaten to death.  Yes, you can find some
third party libraries.  And those are almost all for things which have
nothing to do with application business programming.  For those things,
if I need them I'll use Java.  I have nothing AGAINST Java, it's just
not as good a language for business development.

Also, I've seen more than one project get badly burned by
incompatibilities between third party libraries.  And then what do you
do?


> > With OO, I have to first figure out which class calculating
> > the price, then be sure it has access to the history information.
If
> not, I
> 
> cant follow you. It seems you really dont know what OO means.

No, it seems you don't know what pricing means.  You can't follow me,
because you've never written an enterprise-level pricing module.  I find
this all the time: Java theorists use simplistic application "examples"
to prove their point, but in truth the real world model doesn't fit.

For example, in pricing you often have to know how much a client has
bought in a certain period.  This is historical information.  You may
even have to know which store he bought from, in order to provide
quantity discounts.  In an OO environment, if you haven't already made
that information available to the class that calculates price, you will
have to modify the interface.  For example, if you only provided the
item and customer number to the pricing class, then you will need to add
the store number.  And as has been shown in every study of OO
programming, changes to the interface are the single most expensive
thing in OO development.  Whereas in a procedural program, it's simply a
call to another server.

In the real world of corporate operations, changing business conditions
often require changes in the fundamental way things are done, and these
unforeseen changes are where the OO hierarchy fails.


> You dont have to power
> down your appserver because one class changed, this is also a quite
crazy
> statement.

Excuse me?  How exactly do you redeploy an EAR file without restarting
the application server?  Please show me the EXACT procedures to redeploy
an EAR file.  I'd love to see this, actually.  (By the way, I know you
can get around some of this by hot-applying changes, but then you need
to know the directory structure of your server, and that gets pretty
scary.)


> Creating a project with a RPG/JSP mix is the last option i would use
> when creating a web-based project.

And it's the first one I would use.


> Back to your statement with the real world and OO. Why the hell are
the
> worlds leading language architects
> designing OO based languages the last 10 years?

Maybe because RPG and COBOL are doing just fine in the business rules
space.  Most of the concentration has gone on in the Internet
programming arena, and frankly we know exactly what happened there,
don't we?  Basically a highly inflated market of software tat was never
delivered, leading to a meltdown of the entire tech economy.

In the meantime, of course, RPG and COBOL keep on going and going...


> In fact, i am quite happy that
> we have some other languages and concepts than RPG, not because its
bad,
> but because language inovation
> didnt come from Rochester the last 10 years. RPG is living because of
> its install base, not because of its
> inovation.

Marc, you really need to revisit RPG.  The changes to RPG have been
incredible.  As have the ILE concepts and everything else.  You're just
plaing wrong if you think there's been no innovation in the iSeries in
the last ten years.


> And Joe, beside working on your OO skills, you should focus on facts
not
> on personal attacks. Flaming
> someone not having industry experience is somehow lame. Its just a
poor
> try to back your arguments with strong words.

Marc, you can spend some time heeding your own words.  You called my
programming a "quick hack", simply because it doesn't fit into your OO
methodology.

In any event, you have yet to provide any reason that Java is good for
business applications.  You rant and rave about third party packages and
namespaces, but frankly I don't find any real business experience in
your statements.

And I'm not flaming you, I just don't like people coming onto the
mailing lists and telling everyone that OO is the way to go when they
really don't have the experience to back it up.  There might be someone
who doesn't know any better who might listen to you.  So I am here to
make sure the other side of the argument is heard, and to allow the
readers to make up their own mind.

Remember, I love Java.  I love OO.  I think OO may indeed be one of the
few true advances in programming since the Von Neumann machine.  But I
also think RPG is a better language for developing complex business
rules, and I have real world examples that, at least to me, prove why.
This is based not on a dislike of the language, but on over 25 years of
development experience.

Joe