Re: [spoon-discuss] Why we need OO

[Daniel Lepage <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday, April 28, 2003, at 09:51  AM, Rob Speer wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 06:19:11AM -0400, bd wrote:
> > Okay, either 'Root' or 'Class' (note the uppercase). I just think 
> > 'Thingy'
> > is... bad.
>
> There's already a Class class. It defines the properties that classes
> have. Every class is an instance of it. Most instances will not in fact
> be classes themselves.
>
> Again, the name of a class describes what its derived objects are, not
> what the class itself is. Here are some examples of Thingies:
>
> * the number 17
> * my last spoon-business post
> * the 'b' at the end of my name
> * Unbridled Hostility
> * failing diplomacy with Thermodynomic
> * me
> * you
> * a Ford Prefect Gnome
>
> In fact, the first five are Concepts as well. The last three should be
> defined as Objects eventually. But all of them are Thingies, because
> they exist in some form within the game. Would you prefer that they
> should all be called Roots?

It seems to me that some of these don't need to be defined like this... 
an Integer, for example, is simply a Number that has an integer as a 
value; in that case, I see no reason not to use the integers defined in 
standard english, rather than use a special Integer class that we 
define as being a standard english integer. AFAICT, there's no reason 
why the ClassList can't start with what you're currently calling an 
'Object' and go from there...

> I'll consider "Thing" instead of "Thingy", but I wanted to capture the
> vagueness of that class and the fact that anything at all can be in it.
> I don't want to rename "Object", since this is what people are almost
> always thinking of when they say "object". If I call the root class
> Object, then someone may make a rule involving "an object" and suddenly
> the number 3 is able to do stuff.

What's wrong with everything being first-class objects (says the Python 
Programmer)?

In some languages (Ruby comes to mind) it's legal to say 3.times(blurf) 
and such like that; I never really saw the point (it seems like it 
overworks the interpreter/compiler, forcing it to make distinctions 
between floating point numbers and dot-construct-using integers), but 
it has been done.

But anyway, why do we need to define our own version of '3'? 3 is an 
object; but does not need to be defined as one in the context of the 
Nomic, as it is defined as one in the larger scope of Real Life.

--
Wonko

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