python without OO

[Davor]

Is it possible to write purely procedural code in Python, or the OO
constructs in both language and supporting libraries have got so
embedded that it's impossible to avoid them? Also, is anyone aware of
any scripting language that could be considered as "Python minus OO
stuff"? (As you can see I'm completely new to Python and initially
believed it's a nice&simple scripting language before seeing all this
OO stuff that was added in over time)
Thanks,
Davor

[Francis Girard]

Le mercredi 26 Janvier 2005 02:43, Jeff Shannon a écrit*:

In statically typed languages like C++ and Java, inheritance trees are
necessary so that you can appropriately categorize objects by their
type. Since you must explicitly declare what type is to be used
where, you may need fine granularity of expressing what type a given
object is, which requires complex inheritance trees. In Python, an
object is whatever type it acts like -- behavior is more important
than declared type, so there's no value to having a huge assortment of
potential types. Deep inheritance trees only happen when people are
migrating from Java. ;)

Jeff Shannon
Technician/Programmer
Credit International

These lines precisely express my thoughts. Most of the difficulties in OO in
Java/C++ comes from the all mighty goal of preserving type safety. Type
safety is certainly a very desirable goal but it, sometimes, leads to very
complex code only to achieve it. The prize is just too high. The design
patterns that were supposed to save time through high code reuse oftenly
becomes a maintenance nightmare. Something that no one in the company can
understand except a few. Instead of trying to fix some domain specific code,
you end up trying to fix a supposedly highly reusable code that, oh well, you
have to adapt. This is espeacially true if the system had been designed by a
big OO-design-patterns enthusiastic programmer geek.

I am not saying that design patterns are bad. I think that they are an
invaluable gift to OO. I'm only saying that they have indeed a perniciuous
and pervert effect in the real world industry. People become religious about
it and forget to think about a simple solution ...

Being dynamically typed, these kind monster patterns are much less probable.
And the Python philosophy and culture is the very contrary to that trend.

I've been involved in C++/Java projects for the last 8 years. The first time I
met Python, I've been frigthen by its lack of static type safety. But over
the time, I've been convinced by seeing clean Python code over and over
again. In the end, I could appreciate that being simple leads the way to less
bugs, which type safety was supposed to prevent ... Coming from the C++
community, Python had been just like fresh air. It changed me from the
nightmare derscribed in that discussion thread. When I think that comapnies
pay big money for these kind of monsters after having seen a few ppt slides
about it, it makes me shiver.

Regards,

Francis Girard
FRANCE

[PA]

On Jan 26, 2005, at 20:39, Francis Girard wrote:

When I think that comapnies
pay big money for these kind of monsters after having seen a few ppt
slides
about it, it makes me shiver.

Right... but... since when does an implementation language of any sort
save a project from its own doom?

Project fails for many reasons but seldomly because one language is
"better" or "worst" than another one.

Cheers

--
PA
http://alt.textdrive.com/

[Francis Girard]

Le mercredi 26 Janvier 2005 20:47, PA a écrit*:

Project fails for many reasons but seldomly because one language is
"better" or "worst" than another one.
I think you're right. But you have to choose the right tools that fit your
needs. But I think that's what you meant anyway.

Cheers

Cheers too,

Francis Girard
FRANCE
--
PA
http://alt.textdrive.com/

[Frans Englich]

On Wednesday 26 January 2005 18:55, Terry Reedy wrote:

Your Four Steps to Python Object Oriented Programming - vars, lists, dicts,
and finally classes is great. It makes this thread worthwhile. I saved it
and perhaps will use it sometime (with credit to you) to explain same to
others.

I think so too. M.E. Farmer's reflections on management was also a shining
piece of gold in this thread.
Cheers,

Frans

[PA]

On Jan 26, 2005, at 21:35, Francis Girard wrote:

Project fails for many reasons but seldomly because one language is
"better" or "worst" than another one.

I think you're right. But you have to choose the right tools that fit
your
needs. But I think that's what you meant anyway.

Yes. But even with the "best" tool and the "best" intents, projects
still fail. In fact, most IT projects are considered failures:

http://www.economist.com/business/Pr...ory_ID=3423238

Cheers

--
PA
http://alt.textdrive.com/

[Francis Girard]

Le mercredi 26 Janvier 2005 21:44, PA a écrit*:

On Jan 26, 2005, at 21:35, Francis Girard wrote:

Project fails for many reasons but seldomly because one language is
"better" or "worst" than another one.
I think you're right. But you have to choose the right tools that fit
your
needs. But I think that's what you meant anyway.

Yes. But even with the "best" tool and the "best" intents, projects
still fail. In fact, most IT projects are considered failures:

http://www.economist.com/business/Pr...ory_ID=3423238

Well, let's go back home for some gardening. My wife will be happy.

Cheers

--
PA
http://alt.textdrive.com/

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

In <ct************ *@news.t-online.com>, Frank Bechmann (w) wrote:

know what's funny: in the Lua mailing list there is currently a
discussion about adding OO to Lua.

From my quick glance at the language last year I recall that one can
access elements of tables (in Python: dict()) with this syntax:
``tbl.attr`` and it's also possible to put functions into those tables. So
it's already a prototype based OO language. Remember: you need objects
for an OO language -- classes are optional!

Ciao,
Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch

[beliavsky]

Nick Coghlan wrote:

Davor wrote:

thanks for the link

know what's funny: in the Lua mailing list there is currently a
discussion about adding OO to Lua.

I guess most of these newer languages have no choice but to support OO if they want to attract a larger user base :-(...

Tell me, have you ever defined a C structure, and then written

various functions to operate on that structure (i.e. taking a pointer to the structure as their first argument)?

Have you then put both the structure definition and the function prototypes into a single header file and used that header file from other code?

That's OO programming: associating several pieces of information as an 'object', and associating various methods to operate on instances of those

objects.

Then why was C++ invented? What you have described can be done in C,
Pascal, and Fortran 90, all of which are generally classified as
procedural programming languages. As Lutz and Ascher say in "Learning
Python", in object-based programming one can pass objects around, use
them in expressions, and call their methods. "To qualify as being truly
object-oriented (OO), though, objects need to also participate in
something called an inheritance hierarchy." Whether true OOP is a Good
Thing is arguable and depends on the situation.

[Timo Virkkala]

This guy has got to be a troll. No other way to understand.

--
Timo Virkkala

[Davor]

Timo Virkkala wrote:

This guy has got to be a troll. No other way to understand.

not really - it was not my intention at all - but it seems people get
upset whenever this OO stuff is mentioned - and what I did not expect at
all at this forum as I believed Python people should not be so OO
hardcore (seems not all as quite a few have indicated in their
replies)... Nevertheless, I think the discussion has several quite good
points!