Greg's Los Techies - Latest Comments

Re: To Thine Own Self Be True

Christian — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:46:33 -0000

Too true!

Re: OO Do I Know Thee?

derick.bailey — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 09:52:21 -0000

of all the statements made, i'm really interested in the the Interfaces item the most... "(C#) Interfaces are an abstract representation of a responsibility. Too inflexible and limiting. Narrows the scope of what they can be by (ironically) assigning them too broad a role in an application."

i'd love to see a follow-up post on this one statement, sooner rather than later. :)

and good for you for asking questions and drawing your own conclusions. i've noticed myself starting to ask more questions since I've ventured into ruby-land. my understanding of OO is entirely .NET-centric, and I need to fix that.

Re: OO Do I Know Thee?

Ralf Westphal — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 11:08:06 -0000

@Gregory: I very much feel with you. OO to me is overrated. It´s a tool for to solve some kind of problems. And OO languages are our tools to code in.

But why should we limited to think about solutions in OO terms?

I´ve given that up. Instead I´m designing software using data flows - which in the end get "mechanically" translated into OO language constructs.

The data flowing in those designs is OO in the usual way, and the leafs in the abstraction tree of my flow designs are OO code. So most of the "code" is diagrams depicting the functionality of the software in a readable manner.

Giving up traditional OO in that way has greatly helped me and many others I´ve taught to think along the same lines. Everybody feels relieved from a great burden OO has put on them.

Re: OO Do I Know Thee?

gregorylong — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:59:57 -0000

@Naeem - true. true. This was mainly a ramble, but with a purpose in mind - to kick me into finishing the other posts (the ones were I present a structured idea.

@Mike Sweet! Object Thinking has been on my future reading list for a while. Time to make it happen. I had not read the Coffee Maker but I have to say - while I agree with many of the things Uncle Bob is saying - I believe he is repeating many of the patterns of thinking about OO that I find subtly damaging. Hmmm. Maybe I should do his exercise . . . gotta think about that one.

Re: OO Do I Know Thee?

Mike Murray — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:35:08 -0000

I think you would really enjoy two reads on this subject (both of them older reads):

Object Thinking by David West (http://www.amazon.com/Object-T... - I'm EXTREMELY surprised this is published by Microsoft (hardly anyone in the MS community has ever or does now advocate this view of OO)

Coffee Maker by Uncle Bob Martin (http://www.objectmentor.com/re...

These two reads in the last year or two made me realize I don't really know what OO is (or was meant to be), and I think I'm not alone. The Object Thinking book is great because it fills in the historical background to the OO movement (most notably Smalltalk), and where (in the author's mind) it may have gone a little awry.

These reads will make you ask more questions, which I suppose is a good thing. haha :)

Re: OO Do I Know Thee?

Naeem Khedarun — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:42:29 -0000

Programming and Philosophy both require a logical and pragmatic approach to improvement.

While I like that you find Object Orientation as a solution to a smaller domain of problems than most use it for, I can't find a structured argument in your post.

What we are looking for is not necessarily answers, but an incline pointing us in a direction of possible improvement... :)

Re: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning – A Review

TubesTime — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:11:42 -0000

But you've just wrote a review! This book shouldn't be just read but should be exercised. This is the key point!

Re: If You’re Looking for Nothin But .Net . . .

Chris Conway — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:32:14 -0000

I was a part of his Philly class last fall and I just wanted to echo the same sentiment. JP's enthusiasm and passion are unparalleled and it is incredibly infectious. Don't forget the fact that he has mastered the craft of development in c#, I've never seen a piece of code refactored so many times in such a short period of time. If I had a problem with a particular method, he was able to quickly analyze my intent, get it working in seconds (on something I labored for well over 45 minutes) and then refactor it to be more elegant and reusable. I can't recommend enough his course! But definitely be prepared, it's not for the beginner as you laid out in your post.

Re: If You’re Looking for Nothin But .Net . . .

Jordan Martz — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:26:46 -0000

YES, It was a great time. It's been tough to recover from the whole experience, sleepwise, however in growth. I've never been so passionate about matching my development goals in life and in development. Great post.

Re: Pablo’s Topic of the Month – May 2009 Edition

Kyle Szklenski — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:18:17 -0000

I agree. I'm really looking forward to the month of May.

Re: Pablo’s Topic of the Month – May 2009 Edition

Martin Faartoft — Fri, 01 May 2009 09:45:53 -0000

Sounds great, looking forward!

Re: Know Your Enemy

Joe Mamma — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:11:44 -0000

Thank you for this! I think we all feel the pressure to compete and then feel demoralized that we aren't winning. But then we realize that, sometimes, we are pushed to the forefront every so often because of what we know and it becomes a little more clear that we are all winning (compared to ourselves ;) Thank you for putting into words what a great many of us must feel: That we are losing the race...

Re: Know Your Enemy

Kevin Lee — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 23:03:09 -0000

I couldn't agree more. I think that we are often scared to show our cards for fear that someone else will compare us against the "Best". The thing is that the "Best" are the best because they did just that. Once you realize that getting better is about self improvement, and continuous improvement, you will forget about the "best", and ironically will begin to take the step up the "best" ladder.

Re: Hola Los Techies and Thanks!

Ray Houston — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:16:11 -0000

Welcome aboard!