Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

[darren kirby]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

quoth the Wayne Brehaut:

(I started with Royal McBee LGP 30 machine language (hex input) in
1958, and their ACT IV assembler later! Then FORTRAN IV in 1965. By
1967 I too was using (Burroughs) Algol-60, and 10 years later upgraded
to (DEC-10) Simula-67.)
>
Going---going---

Mel? Is that you?

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/mel.html

-d
--
darren kirby :: Part of the problem since 1976 :: http://badcomputer.org
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..."
- Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, June 1972

[Wayne Brehaut]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:18:05 +0530, "Rustom Mody"
<rustompmody@gm ail.comwrote:

>On 7/14/07, Alex Martelli <aleax@mac.comw rote:

>>
>OOP can be abused (particularly with deep or intricate inheritance
>structures). But the base concept is simple and clear: you can bundle
>state and behavior into a stateful "black box" (of which you may make as
>many instances, with independent state but equal behavior, as you need).
>>

>
>Many years ago (86??) Wegner wrote a paper in OOPSLA called Dimensions
>of Object Orientation in which he called the 'base concept' of 'bundle
>of state and behavior' as 'object based' programming and
>'object-oriented' as object-based + inheritance.

Not quite--according to him:

object-based + classes =class-based
class-based + class inheritance =object-oriented

I.e., "object-oriented = objects + classes + inheritance".

This was not the, by then, standard definition: to be OO would require
all four of:

1. modularity (class-based? object-based?)
2. inheritance (sub-classing)
3. encapsulation (information hiding)
4. polymorphism ((sub-) class-specific response to a message, or
processing of a method)

Unfortunately, most of the "definition s" (usually just hand-waving,
loosey-goosey descriptions) found on the web include none--or only one
or two--of these fundamental requirements by name, and are so loose
that almost any proramming paradigm or style would be OO.

>What Alex is saying is (in effect) that object-based is simple and
>clear (and useful) whereas the object-orientation is subject to abuse.

But OO is also simple and clear (if clearly defined and explained and
illustrated and implemented), and ANY programming style is subject to
abuse. During the hey-day of Pascal as an introductory programming
language (as often misused as more than that) I found many often
spent much of their time defining the data types their program would
use.

>This anyway is my experience: C++ programmers are distinctly poorer
>programmers than C programmers -- for some strange reason closeness to
>the machine has a salutary effect whereas the encouragment of
>uselessly over-engineered programs makes worse programmers.

But this is a tautology: "over-engineered" programs are, by definition
or terminology, not a good thing--independent of what PL or style
they're finally implemented in (assuming that by "engineerin g" you
mean "design" or similar). Many of my Pascal students over-engineered
their solutions to simple problems too?

>GUI is one of those cases wherein inheritance actually helps people
>produce better code but this is something of an exception.

This seems to imply that the list of applications you have in mind or
have worked on includes fewer domains that might profit from full OO
instead of just OB. My guess is that there are many application
domains in which analysts and programmers often think in an "OO way",
but implement in just an OB way because of the PL they or their
employer requires or prefers: in some--perhaps many--of these cases
they have to do "manually" what OO would have automated.

There is a problem, though, of (especially university and college)
education and training in OOP "talking about" how glorious OO is, and
requiring students to use OO techniques whether they're most
appropriate or not (the "classes early" pedagogical mindset). And
this problem is compounded by teaching introductory programming using
a language like Java that requires one to use an OO style for even
trivial programs. And by using one of the many very similar
introductory texbooks that talk a lot about OO before actually getting
started on programming, so students don't realize how trivial a
program is required to solve a trivial problem, and hence look for
complexity everywhere--whether it exists or not--and spend a lot of
time supposedly reducing the complexity of an already simple problem
and its method of solution.

But as I noted above, a similar problem occurred with the crop of
students who first learned Pascal: they often spent much of their time
defining the data types their program would use, just as OO
(especially "classes early") graduates tend to waste time
"over-subclassing" and developing libraries of little-used classes.

The answer is always balance, and having an extensive enough toolkit
that one is not forced or encouraged to apply a programming model that
isn't appropriate and doesn't help in any way (including
maintainability ). And starting with a language that doesn't brainwash
one into believing that the style it enforces or implies is always the
best--and texbooks that teach proper choice of programming style
instead of rigid adherence to one.

wwwayne

[Wayne Brehaut]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 11:49:48 -0600, darren kirby
<bulliver@badco mputer.orgwrote :

>quoth the Wayne Brehaut:
>

>(I started with Royal McBee LGP 30 machine language (hex input) in
>1958, and their ACT IV assembler later! Then FORTRAN IV in 1965. By
>1967 I too was using (Burroughs) Algol-60, and 10 years later upgraded
>to (DEC-10) Simula-67.)
>>
>Going---going---

>
>Mel? Is that you?
>
>http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/mel.html
>

Ha-ha! Thanks for that!

Although I'm not Mel, the first program I saw running on the LGP-30
was his Blackjack program! In 1958 I took a Numerical Methods course
at the University of Saskatchewan, and we got to program Newton's
forward difference method for the LGP-30. Our "computer centre tour"
was to the attic of the Physics building, where their LGP-30 was
networked to a similar one at the Univeristy of Toronto (the first
educational computer network in Canada!), and the operator played a
few hands of Blackjack with the operator there to illustrate how
useful computers could be.

A few years later, as a telecommunicati ons officer in the RCAF, I
helped design (but never got to teach :-( ) a course in LGP-30
architecture and programming using both ML and ACT IV AL, complete
with paper tape input and Charactron Tube
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charactron) output--handy, since this
display was also used in the SAGE system.

We weren't encouraged to use card games as examples, so used
navigational and tracking problems involving fairly simple
trigonometry.

wwwayne

>-d

[Sebastian Bassi]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

On 7/13/07, Simon Hibbs <simon.hibbs@gm ail.comwrote:

place. At the end of it you'll have a good idea how OOP works, and how
Python works. Learning OOp this way is easy and painless, and what you

...

But this tutorial states "I assume you know how object-oriented
programming works"

--
Sebastián Bassi (セバステ゠£ã‚¢ãƒ³)
Diplomado en Ciencia y TecnologÃa.
GPG Fingerprint: 9470 0980 620D ABFC BE63 A4A4 A3DE C97D 8422 D43D

[bonnie@macbird.com]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

On Jul 13, 3:20 pm, Wayne Brehaut <wbreh...@mcsne t.cawrote:

On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 06:01:56 +0200, Bruno Desthuilliers
>
<bdesth.quelque ch...@free.quel quepart.frwrote :

Chris Carlen a écrit :

Hi:

>

From what I've read of OOP, I don't get it. I have also found some
articles profoundly critical of OOP. I tend to relate to these articles.

>
=== 8< ===
>
>
>

Hence, being a hardware designer rather than a computer scientist, I am
conditioned to think like a machine. I think this is the main reason
why OOP has always repelled me.

>

OTOH, OO is about machines - at least as conceveid by Alan Key, who
invented the term and most of the concept. According to him, each object
is a (simulation of) a small machine.

>
Oh you young'uns, not versed in The Ancient Lore, but filled with
self-serving propaganda from Xerox PARC,Alan Kay, and Smalltalk
adherents everywhere!
>
As a few more enlightened have noted in more than one thread here, the
Mother of All OOP was Simula (then known as SIMULA 67). AllAlan Kay
did was define "OOPL", but then didn't notice (apparently--though this
may have been a "convenient oversight") that Simula satisfied all the
criteria so was actually the first OOPL--and at least 10 years earlier
than Smalltalk!
>
So Kay actually invented NONE of the concepts that make a PL an OOPL.
He only stated the concepts concisely and named the result OOP, and
invented yet another implementation of the concepts-- based on a
LISP-like functional syntax instead of an Algol-60 procedural syntax,
and using message-passing for communication amongst objects (and
assumed a GUI-based IDE) (and introduced some new terminology,
especially use of the term "method" to distinguish class and instance
procedures and functions, which Simula hadn't done) .
>
As Randy Gest notes onhttp://www.smalltalk.o rg/alankay.html, "The
major ideas in Smalltalk are generally credited toAlan Kaywith many
roots in Simula, LISP and SketchPad." Too many seem to assume that
some of these other "features" of Smalltalk are part of the definition
of an OOP, and so are misled into believing the claim that it was the
first OOPL. Or they claim that certain deficiencies in Simula's object
model--as compared to Smalltalk's--somehow disqualifies it as a "true
OOPL", even though it satisfies all the criteria as stated by Kay in
his definition. Seehttp://en.wikipedia.or g/wiki/Simulaand related
pages, and "The History of Programming Languages I (HOPL I)", for
more details.
>
Under a claim of Academic Impunity (or was that "Immunity") , here's
another historical tid-bit. In a previous empolyment we once had a
faculty applicant from CalTech who knew we were using Simula as our
introductory and core language in our CS program, so he visited Xerox
PARC before coming for his inteview. His estimate ofAlan Kayand
Smalltalk at that time (early 80s) was that "They wanted to implement
Simula but didn't understand it--so they invented Smalltalk and now
don't understand _it_!"
>
wwwayne
>
=== 8< ===

A couple of notes on this post.

Alan Kay has always publicly credited Simula as the direct inspiration
for Smalltalk, and if you know the man and his work, this implication
of taking credit for the first OOP language is not true, it is a
credit assigned to him by others, and one which he usually rights when
confronted with it.

You may be confused with the fact that "object oriented
programming"was a term which I believe was first used by Alan and his
group at PARC, so perhaps the coining of the term is what is being
referenced by others.

Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the tone of your post conveys an animosity
that did not exist between the original Smalltalk and Simula
inventors; Nygard and Kay were good friends, and admired each others'
work very much.


Bonnie MacBird

[Wayne Brehaut]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 07:47:20 -0000, bonnie@macbird. com wrote:

>On Jul 13, 3:20 pm, Wayne Brehaut <wbreh...@mcsne t.cawrote:

>On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 06:01:56 +0200, Bruno Desthuilliers
>>
><bdesth.quelqu ech...@free.que lquepart.frwrot e:

>Chris Carlen a écrit :
>Hi:

>>

> From what I've read of OOP, I don't get it. I have also found some
>articles profoundly critical of OOP. I tend to relate to these articles.

>>
>=== 8< ===

=== 8< ===

>Under a claim of Academic Impunity (or was that "Immunity") , here's
>another historical tid-bit. In a previous empolyment we once had a
>faculty applicant from CalTech who knew we were using Simula as our
>introductory and core language in our CS program, so he visited Xerox
>PARC before coming for his inteview. His estimate ofAlan Kayand
>Smalltalk at that time (early 80s) was that "They wanted to implement
>Simula but didn't understand it--so they invented Smalltalk and now
>don't understand _it_!"
>>
>wwwayne
>>
>=== 8< ===

>
>A couple of notes on this post.
>
>Alan Kay has always publicly credited Simula as the direct inspiration
>for Smalltalk, and if you know the man and his work, this implication
>of taking credit for the first OOP language is not true, it is a
>credit assigned to him by others, and one which he usually rights when
>confronted with it.

I know this, and was perhaps a little too flippant in my all-inclusive
statement "self-serving propaganda from Xerox PARC,Alan Kay, and
Smalltalk adherents everywhere!", for which I apologize. But it was
made with humorous intent, as I had hoped the opening "Oh you
young'uns, not versed in The Ancient Lore, but filled with
self-serving propaganda..." would imply.

A more accurate and unhumorous statement of my opinion is that it is
Smalltalk adherents who know virtually nothing of the history of
OOP--and even some who do--who did and still do make such claims,
both personally and in the published literature of OOP.

And my statement about a prospective faculty member's opinion was just
that: a historical anecdote, and the expression of an early 80s
opinion by a professional CS professor and researcher in formal
semantics (which may have been part of his distrust of the Smalltalk
team's "understand ing" of Smalltalk) . The opinion he expressed was
his and not my own, and I was just recording (what I thought might
be) an amusing anecdote in a context in which I thought it
appropriate: discussion of what OOP is, and after Bruno made the
claim: "OO is about machines - at least as conceveid by Alan Key, who
invented the term and most of the concept." I don't think my
recording it here should be construed as my opinion of either
Smalltalk or its creators (at that time or now).

As often happens in many arenas, the creator of an idea can lose
control to the flock, and many publications can get accepted if
referrees themselves don't know the facts or take care to check them
before recommending publication--which probably explains why so many
publications (especially in conference proceedings) on OOP in the 80s
and 90s completely omitted any mention of Simula: so much so that I
once intended writing a paper on "Ignorance of Simula Considered
Harmful."

On the other hand, anytyhing you may have inferred about my distaste
for those who doesn't bother to learn anything of the history of a
subject, then make false or misleading claims, and don't bother to
correct themselves when questioned, is true.

>You may be confused with the fact that "object oriented
>programming"wa s a term which I believe was first used by Alan and his
>group at PARC, so perhaps the coining of the term is what is being
>referenced by others.

No, I have been at more than one CS (or related area) conference where
a Smalltalk aficionado has stated unequivocally that Kay invented OOP
and that Smalltalk was the first OOPL. The last I recall for sure was
WebNet 2000, where a (quite young) presenter on Squeak made that
statement, and was not at all certain what Simula was when I asked
whether it might actually have been the first more than 10 years
before Smalltalk 80. So his claim, and that of many others,
explicitly or implicitly, is that not only the term, but most (or all)
of the concept, and (often) the first implementation of OOP was by Kay
and his Xerox PARC team in Smalltalk 80.

>Perhaps I'm mistaken, but the tone of your post conveys an animosity
>that did not exist between the original Smalltalk and Simula
>inventors; Nygard and Kay were good friends, and admired each others'
>work very much.

Yes, you are very much mistaken (as I note above), and appear not to
have understood the intended humorous tone of my posting.

wwwayne

>
>Bonnie MacBird
>

[Paddy]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

On Jul 13, 5:06 pm, Chris Carlen <crcarleRemoveT ...@BOGUSsandia .gov>
wrote:

Hi:
Christopher

>
Problem:
>
1. How to most easily learn to write simple PC GUI programs that will
send data to remote embedded devices via serial comms, and perhaps
incorporate some basic (x,y) type graphics display and manipulation
(simple drawing program). Data may result from user GUI input, or from
parsing a text config file. Solution need not be efficient in machine
resource utilization. Emphasis is on quickness with which programmer
can learn and implement solution.

Have you also tried looking for a cross-platform GUI program that has
a
scripting interface that you might adapt? If found then the extra
scripting needs may be reduced.

- Paddy.

[Aahz]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

In article <om_li.21868$RX .20941@newssvr1 1.news.prodigy. net>,
James Stroud <jstroud@mbi.uc la.eduwrote:

>
>If you just want to enter some values and set some flags and then hit
>"go", you could always program the GUI in HTML and have a cgi script
>process the result. This has a lot of benefits that are frequently
>overlooked but tend to be less fun than using a bona-fide toolkit like
>WX or QT.

This is excellent advice worth emphasizing -- but then, I make my living
working on a web app. ;-)
--
Aahz (aahz@pythoncra ft.com) <* http://www.pythoncraft.com/

I support the RKAB

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

Wayne Brehaut a écrit :

On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 06:01:56 +0200, Bruno Desthuilliers
<bdesth.quelque chose@free.quel quepart.frwrote :
>

>Chris Carlen a écrit :

>>Hi:
>>>
>> From what I've read of OOP, I don't get it. I have also found some
>>articles profoundly critical of OOP. I tend to relate to these articles.
>>>

>
=== 8< ===
>

>>Hence, being a hardware designer rather than a computer scientist, I am
>>conditioned to think like a machine. I think this is the main reason
>>why OOP has always repelled me.

>OTOH, OO is about machines - at least as conceveid by Alan Key, who
>invented the term and most of the concept. According to him, each object
>is a (simulation of) a small machine.

>
Oh you young'uns, not versed in The Ancient Lore, but filled with
self-serving propaganda from Xerox PARC, Alan Kay, and Smalltalk
adherents everywhere!

Not feeling concerned.

(snip pro-simula/anti-Xerox propaganda).

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

Wayne Brehaut a écrit :
(snip)

after Bruno made the
claim: "OO is about machines - at least as conceveid by Alan Key, who
invented the term and most of the concept."

Please reread more carefully the above. I do give credit to Smalltalk's
author for the *term* "OOP", and *most* (not *all*) of the concepts (I
strongly disagree with your opinion that message-passing is not a core
concept of OO).

FWIW, I first mentionned Simula too (about the state-machine and
simulation aspect), then sniped this mention because I thought it was
getting a bit too much OT - we're not on comp.object here.

[hide1713@gmail.com]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

You are lucky.Our project is a cross-platform cluster computer
managment system
this system can run on both windows and Linux

http://pluster.gf.cs.hit.edu.cn/

I tell you how we solve this problems

>
1. How to most easily learn to write simple PC GUI programs that will
send data to remote embedded devices via serial comms, and perhaps
incorporate some basic (x,y) type graphics display and manipulation
(simple drawing program). Data may result from user GUI input, or from
parsing a text config file. Solution need not be efficient in machine
resource utilization. Emphasis is on quickness with which programmer
can learn and implement solution.

We use tk for GUI and we have a interpreter reads VB form file ".frm"
in and
display it with tk.You just need to draw forms in VB and save it in
frm formate
load it in your python file
LoadForm("aa.fr m")
after that you can use button,menu and so on in python

We use XMLRPC to conmunicate with remote node.XMLRPC is very cool for
you can
invoke a function in remote side in the same way you invoke a local
method.
for example
we have an remote object foo
foo.bar() #invoke bar() in remote side
but XMLRPC is work on network.I'm not sure it can work in serial

2. Must be cross-platform: Linux + Windows. This factor can have a big
impact on whether it is necessary to learn a new language, or stick with
C. If my platform was only Linux I could just learn GTK and be done
with it. I wouldn't be here in that case.

and most important is XMLRPC is cross-platform.you can use a linux for
server and windows for client

[Wayne Brehaut]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:10:05 +0200, Bruno Desthuilliers
<bruno.42.desth uilliers@wtf.we bsiteburo.oops. comwrote:

>Wayne Brehaut a écrit :
>(snip)

after Bruno made the
>claim: "OO is about machines - at least as conceveid by Alan Key, who
>invented the term and most of the concept."

>
>Please reread more carefully the above. I do give credit to Smalltalk's
>author for the *term* "OOP", and *most* (not *all*) of the concepts (I
>strongly disagree with your opinion that message-passing is not a core
>concept of OO).

One problem is that it's often not clear what lists of properties are
his definition of OOP vs. what are the intended properties of
Smalltalk--his intended impelmentation of OOP. Many of the lists begin
with the basic requirements that "everything is an object" and
"objects communicate by message passing", but the most common
"generally agreed upon" definition abstracts just four requirements
from these (changing) lists--attempting to separate implementation
details from what is essential to the underlying framework. As I note
below, these were:

1. modularity (class-based? object-based?)
2. inheritance (sub-classing)
3. encapsulation (information hiding)
4. polymorphism ((sub-) class-specific response to a message, or
processing of a method)

Other details in Kay's lists are considered implementation details,
and important advances or alternatives to pevious methods, but not
required for a language to _be_ OO. It is reputed, though, that in
2003 Kay said
(http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?AlanKaysDefin...ObjectOriented) "OOP to
me means only messaging, local retention and protection and hiding of
state-process, and extreme LateBinding of all things."

So I understand your accepting one of Kay's lists as being a
definition of OOP instead of "just" a description of Smalltalk, or of
accepting this fairly recent "definition " as being the true one (as
opposed to the previous lists of usually 6 properties). "It's hard to
hit a moving target!"

>FWIW, I first mentionned Simula too (about the state-machine and
>simulation aspect), then sniped this mention because I thought it was
>getting a bit too much OT - we're not on comp.object here.

Understood--sort of--but there is sufficient accurate information
about Simula available on the web now that it's no longer necessary to
use quotes from Kay about OOP and Smalltalk just because they're more
accessible, as used to be the case. What would be so OT about
referring to Simulain one sentence instead of or in addition to
Smalltalk?

But I digress--my only real objection to your post was your opinion
and claim that Kay "invented the term and most of the concept": I've
never seen anyone claim that anyone else invented the term, but for
the claim that he invented "most of the concept" we need only refer to
Nygaard's claim in "How Object-Oriented Programming Started" at
http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~kristen/FORS..._OO_start.html
that "Simula 67 introduced most of the key concepts of object-oriented
programming: both objects and classes, subclasses (usually referred to
as inheritance) and virtual procedures, combined with safe referencing
and mechanisms for bringing into a program collections of program
structures described under a common class heading (prefixed blocks)."

Combine this with the fact--as stated above by Bonnie MacBird (Alan
Kay's significant other)--that "Alan Kay has always publicly credited
Simula as the direct inspiration for Smalltalk, and... this
implication of taking credit for the first OOP language is not true,
it is a credit assigned to him by others, and one which he usually
rights when confronted with it." If he acknowledges this perhaps
others should too?

As has been noted before, it's often the fact that a cause becomes a
religion: true believers tend to take it over from the originator, and
this religiosity tends to blind them from the facts. Opinions and
rumours become facts, stories are invented, definitions are changed or
twisted, and another religion is born! Even those who don't belong to
the religion cpme to believe the oft-repreated stories, and then help
spread and perpetuate them. (Continuing in my original humorous vein I
was tempted to use terms like "religious zealots", "false gospel",
"propaganda ", etc., but thought better of it in case I was again
misunderstood.)

Again, I disagree only with this one claim. You make significant
contributions to the group and to ellucidating Python and OOP to the
great unwashed: in contrast, all I've done so far is complain about
those who don't accept the correct (i.e., my) definition or use of
terms.

wwwayne

[Wayne Brehaut]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 09:55:35 +0200, Bruno Desthuilliers
<bruno.42.desth uilliers@wtf.we bsiteburo.oops. comwrote:

>Wayne Brehaut a écrit :

>On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 06:01:56 +0200, Bruno Desthuilliers
><bdesth.quelqu echose@free.que lquepart.frwrot e:
>>

>>Chris Carlen a écrit :
>>>Hi:
>>>>
>>> From what I've read of OOP, I don't get it. I have also found some
>>>articles profoundly critical of OOP. I tend to relate to these articles.
>>>>

>>
>=== 8< ===
>>

>>>Hence, being a hardware designer rather than a computer scientist, I am
>>>conditione d to think like a machine. I think this is the main reason
>>>why OOP has always repelled me.
>>OTOH, OO is about machines - at least as conceveid by Alan Key, who
>>invented the term and most of the concept. According to him, each object
>>is a (simulation of) a small machine.

>>
>Oh you young'uns, not versed in The Ancient Lore, but filled with
>self-serving propaganda from Xerox PARC, Alan Kay, and Smalltalk
>adherents everywhere!

>
>Not feeling concerned.
>
>(snip pro-simula/anti-Xerox propaganda).

Or, more accurately, pro:

1. Nygaard & Dahl as the inventors of most of the concept of OOP
2. Simula as the first OOP
3. Kay as the originator of the term OOP
4. Kay, Xerox PARC, and Smalltalk as making significant useful
advances in implementation of OOP and "popularizi ng" it

and anti:

1. attributing credit for any accomplishment to someone who doesn't
himself claim it and even denies it

wwwayne o/o

[Chris Carlen]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

Hendrik van Rooyen wrote:

"Chris Carlen" <crcarl,,,,dia. govwrote:

>>Form 2: Use Python and PySerial and TkInter or wxWidgets.
>>Pro: Cross-platform goal will likely be achieved fully. Have a
>>programmer nearby with extensive experience who can help.
>>Con: Must learn new language and library. Must possibly learn a
>>completely new way of thinking (OOP) not just a new language syntax.
>>This might be difficult.

This is the way to go. - Trust me on this.
When you describe your history, it is almost an exact parallel to mine.
In my case, I have been doing real low level stuff (mostly 8031 assembler)
since 1982 or so. And then I found python in a GSM module (Telit), and
I was intrigued.
I really appreciate your comments on OO - it parallels a lot of what I feel
as there is a lot of apparent BS that does not seem to "do anything" at first
sight.
However- for the GUI stuff, there is an easily understood relationship between
the objects and what you see on the screen - so its a great way of getting
into OO - as far as people like you and me will go with it, which is not very
far, as we tend to think in machine instructions...
And for what its worth - you can programme assembler-like python, and it also
works.
>
The best thing to do is just to spend a few days playing with say Tkinter.
I use a reference from the web written by John W Shipman at New Mexico
Tech - it is succinct and clear, and deserves more widespread publicity.
>
Google for it - I have lost the link, although I still have the pdf file.

[edit]

Thanks for the tip. The next poster provides the link, which I've got
bookmarked now.

The more I play with Python, the more I like it. Perhaps I will
understand OOP quicker than I thought. What I've learned so far about
names binding to objects instead of values stored in memory cells, etc.
has been interesting and fascinating.



--
Good day!

_______________ _______________ __________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser&Electroni cs Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
crcarleRemoveTh is@BOGUSsandia. gov
NOTE, delete texts: "RemoveThis " and
"BOGUS" from email address to reply.

[Steve Holden]

Re: Can a low-level programmer learn OOP?

Chris Carlen wrote:

Hendrik van Rooyen wrote:

> "Chris Carlen" <crcarl,,,,dia. govwrote:

>>Form 2: Use Python and PySerial and TkInter or wxWidgets.
>>Pro: Cross-platform goal will likely be achieved fully. Have a
>>programmer nearby with extensive experience who can help.
>>Con: Must learn new language and library. Must possibly learn a
>>completely new way of thinking (OOP) not just a new language syntax.
>>This might be difficult.

>This is the way to go. - Trust me on this.
>When you describe your history, it is almost an exact parallel to mine.
>In my case, I have been doing real low level stuff (mostly 8031 assembler)
>since 1982 or so. And then I found python in a GSM module (Telit), and
>I was intrigued.
>I really appreciate your comments on OO - it parallels a lot of what I feel
>as there is a lot of apparent BS that does not seem to "do anything" at first
>sight.
>However- for the GUI stuff, there is an easily understood relationship between
>the objects and what you see on the screen - so its a great way of getting
>into OO - as far as people like you and me will go with it, which is not very
>far, as we tend to think in machine instructions...
>And for what its worth - you can programme assembler-like python, and it also
>works.
>>
>The best thing to do is just to spend a few days playing with say Tkinter.
>I use a reference from the web written by John W Shipman at New Mexico
>Tech - it is succinct and clear, and deserves more widespread publicity.
>>
>Google for it - I have lost the link, although I still have the pdf file.

[edit]
>
Thanks for the tip. The next poster provides the link, which I've got
bookmarked now.
>
The more I play with Python, the more I like it. Perhaps I will
understand OOP quicker than I thought. What I've learned so far about
names binding to objects instead of values stored in memory cells, etc.
has been interesting and fascinating.
>
>
>

I'm happy you are proceeding with so little trouble. Without wishing to
confuse you, however, I should point out that this aspect of Python has
very little to do with its object-orientation. There was a language
called Icon, for example, 20 years ago, that used similar semantics but
wasn't at all object-oriented.

regards
Steve
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