Re: back to: improving rpg. was: what is object oriented programming

[Hans Boldt <boldt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe Pluta wrote:
> To repeat: Information hiding is an OO concept.  Period.

And to repeat, no it's not. Ada demonstrates that point. Ada 
included abstract data types, including data hiding, well before it 
became an OO language. The concept of information hiding was well 
known before OO became fashionable. Information hiding is a useful 
concept for sure (no argument there), but language-enforced 
information hiding is neither an essential part of OO nor exclusive 
to OO.

Regarding Python's method of data hiding, sure you can get around 
it. Just like you can get around the data hiding in C++ by coding 
"#define private public". Any good programmer can get around the 
data hiding features of any language, and so honoring the data 
hiding wishes of the class programmer is always a matter of 
programming protocol, and not a matter of OO programming language 
design. That is, enforcing data hiding is a project management 
problem, not a programming language design problem.

Cheers! Hans