How do hackers drive?

[Greg Pavelcak]

On Sat, Nov 01, 2003 at 12:59:42PM -0500, Rahul Siddharthan wrote:
> Bill Moran wrote:
> > I've always had a uncomfortable feeling in the pit of my stomach that C++
> > and other OO languages were more complicated than they needed to be. 
> 
> I could never get figure out C++, the syntax was too complex for me,
> maybe I never approached it the right way.  (Same problem with perl.)
> 
> On the other hand, a few months ago I tried out python and it was love
> at first sight.  Initially I was writing stuff in a procedural way but
> I'm beginning to grok OO ideas now and it seems to all just make sense.
> I wish there was a good compiler for it though, speed is important in a
> lot of the things I do.  Subsequently, I also dabbled in lisp a bit,
> does anyone use it these days for serious new projects (as opposed to
> emacs/maxima/other ancient stuff)?
> 
> Quoted on http://www.smalltalk.org :
> 
>   "I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have
>   C++ in mind."  - Alan Kay
> 
> - Rahul

I'm a non-programmer. Is it the OO languages that talk about
"methods" when it looks like they're talking about something like
functions, or is that something else?

Choosing an appropriate technical term can be that difficult, but
it's downright silly to choose a weird term for something that
already has a perfectly good name. I can't stand to read the stuff.
Every time I see "method" it pisses me off.

Sorry, had to vent on that.

Greg