Re: RPG - I'm not dead yet!

[Joe Pluta <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 7/7/2011 4:10 AM, john e wrote:
> This is not correct, OO has nothing to do with flow.
> An OO language has constructs which help with encapsulation, or "information hiding".Not much more, but nothing less.You can program "procedural" if you want, in Java, whatever that means.If you mean "imperative", there is no difference (you can make one big main method if you want).

It's far too early in the morning to argue about semantics.  Procedural 
programming has definite differences in flow control over OO 
programming.  It's not the language; as you note, you can program 
procedurally in Java.  However, in a procedural language there's 
traditionally less concern about creating hierarchies of classes than 
there is in OO.  And it's those hierarchies that control the flow of the 
program.  You can call it encapsulation, but the problem is that with an 
OO language you often have to dig deeply into the hierarchy to 
understand the flow whereas with a procedural language it's 
traditionally easier to find a specific line of code.

The point is that I find it a lot easier to react to major external 
forces in a procedural language.  In an OO environment, if it turns out 
that your class hierarchy is no longer valid, changing the fundamental 
class hierarchy is a major undertaking (heck, renaming a class is almost 
impossible - that's why we still have the AS400 class in JTOpen!).  
Whereas in a procedural language, it's often as simple as grafting 
together a few bits from different programs, adding some new 
functionality, and calling the new program.

My point: procedural languages react better to stress than OO 
languages.  And that's purely my opinion after many years of working 
with both.  Your mileage may vary <smile>.

Joe