programming lang for Netrek

[Paul Berker]

I would kick in my comments on OO
as bad as the Netrek code may be described, I was able to pick my way
through it.
and while OO always sounds so good, it must be better right?
well try going through someone Else's OO code, I find it much more
difficult by comparison.
I think OO makes the original programming easier, but later on for
someone else much harder.
Unless someone really creates good documentation... which I never
usually see.

MaxFerret

[Jared Thirsk]

From: Paul Berker <pa...@paulberker.com>

I was trying to get at this in a story in my last big email, but even still, I think if you are starting from scratch, OO is an overall win in promoting encapsulation, extensibility and good architecture.

When there's no documentation, I would like to think the class structure can help imply and enforce organization and decoupling for future contributions.  In the MS world, tools like Intellisense, live XML docs on demand, auto-generated class diagrams sure make a lot of OO fast to pick up (and I know Java has similar things available.)

It sounds like Andrew could and would have contributed to the netrek codebase if it was better organized, and it helps potential keen best practices type contributors like Toumal not have a panic attack when thinking about working with it.

I was concerned that Toumal might be one to start another programming exercise that didn't have enough man power to actually follow through with contributing to netrek, but he seems set on best practices and content with nothing else, so I say if he wants to start climbing the mountain of rewriting everything, I'll hand him and his as-of-yet unidentified team hiking poles and wish them the best, as it's better than nothing and would become valuable at some point if it did get the needed effort.

Jared

[James Cameron]

Object oriented is used in Gytha. Objects are instantiated for ships,
planets, torpedoes, and packet types.

--
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/

[San Mehat]

Documentation policy (and unit tests) can often help with this, and imho would
probably behoove anyone taking on the effort of 'leading' such an
effort (co-ordinated or not)

-san

>
> MaxFerret
>
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[Toumal Rakesh]

On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 8:25 AM, Paul Berker <pa...@paulberker.com> wrote:
> I would kick in my comments on OO
> as bad as the Netrek code may be described, I was able to pick my way
> through it.
> and while OO always sounds so good, it must be better right?
> well try going through someone Else's OO code, I find it much more difficult
> by comparison.
> I think OO makes the original programming easier, but later on for someone
> else much harder.
> Unless someone really creates good documentation... which I never usually
> see.

OO doesn't make code less readable IMHO. I found that this is very much depending on experience. If you're not experienced with OO, you'll have trouble grasping some of the more advanced concepts. I guess Scala will be even more foreign then because they take it to the next level there. It's still Java, but with the addition of many functional improvements, mixins, closures, and much more.

What OO does is add a certain overhead. However, if people like CERN use OO software to work with and push their many terabytes of LHC sensor data around, then people who claim that their little application/game can't be written in an OO way because it would be "too slow" get a raised brow from me. It's simply not true, just like the "all java programs are slow and sluggish"-prejudice still perpetuated by some.

The benefits of OO are numerous and frankly, I don't even want to get into that kind of discussion here. There's lots of articles on this subject on the web. OO is not the "golden hammer" and makes no sense for lowlevel high performance stuff, but for applications themselves it's fine and has proven itself millions of times.

And yes, I was a OO hater too in my early days. In fact, I wrote Deranged Raid in plain C to "prove" that you can write a complex 3d game without it. What I learnt is that yes, you can do that. However, I never want to touch that code anymore ever in my life ;)