[FRIAM] What is an object?

[Marcus Daniels]

Nick,

An important aspect of object-oriented programming (OOP) is the ability to pass around capabilities and not just lifeless state.   With object-oriented programming, the things objects can do as just another kind of stuff.

Without this property, it is more difficult to consider interactions between objects without subsuming the objects into a bigger class of objects.
For example, it is unreasonable to consider FRIAM as a parent or owner of the members of this list, yet the procedural programming paradigm strongly encourages that kind of thinking and that kind of organization.

There are other aspects of OOP that people may claim are important, such as type inheritance or even multiple inheritance.   I think these are non-essential.  Messaging (or methods) and localized-encapsulation are essential.  Some object-oriented languages like Smalltalk or JavaScript have almost no type system at all.

Marcus

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <Friam at redfish.com>
Date: Tuesday, July 17, 2018 at 8:07 PM
To: Friam <Friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] What is an object?

Dave, and anybody else who wants to play.

I have always been puzzled by the question of how one distinguishes an object in object programming from a utility in DOS or a tool in Matlab.  Or any mathematical function, for that matter.  You give it what it needs, and it gives you what it’s supposed to, and you don’t give a damn how it works.

Please don’t yell at me.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

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