Some hints to the devteam

[Wytter]

Well, I do believe that an object oriented approach can be a good thing at times - but you should use it as a tool to create better code, and not because someone told you it was wise to use OO.

During the time since I started learning C I've developed more or less my own style (well, noone taught me how or what :0)) and it is somewhat object oriented when ~OO is applicable - for instance I hated the long if() {...} else {...} statements that were used when checking for commands in el.ini, and thought it should be made more intelligently and furthermore enable it to be reused everywhere.

OO programming is a tool, that makes it easier to maintain the codebase; but of course it should be used wisely.

I do believe that it's quite usable in many games - I just wouldn't use it in anything where I need to have full control of the code. C with function pointers doesn't give up the control of your code either, while concepts such as virtual functions makes it a bit difficult to know how the machine treats it + it creates an overhead. At least that's how I feel now, but I haven't worked enough with C++ / g++ -S to say for sure :-). Somehow I just like the C approach (possibly with switch statements) using function pointers instead of virtual functions, after reading more about them since it still feels that I have control of the code.

 

Oh, and here's how I got started:

Basic ->

Pascal/Delphi ->

C and embedded ASM

 

Currently I just do C, but I did like to work with embedded devices on the low-level ;-)

[Chryzopraz]

OMG. I knew I should have been silent.

 

Of course my post was some generalization and as such couldn't be 100% correct. This was my observation based on the sample of my collegues (older and younger than me) and my students.

 

And of course I'm not saying OO programming is worse or better then functional.

Just that someone may prefer this or that and it does not mean one or the other is better or worse. It's based on experience and feelings one has.

Of course some tools may be better suited for some jobs. But many people forget, that the best tool is the one they can use effectively, not the one that is theoretically designed best for given job.

 

Anyway this topic should probably go to flames now and I'll be banned soon

 

Regards

 

Chryzopraz

 

Edit: Probably I should also add my language history

That is, more or less chronological:

BASIC (various 8 bit computers flavours), Z80 assembler, Pascal, Turbo Pascal, C, x86 assembler, C++, Ada, Perl, COBOL, S/390 assembler, Java, PHP, plpgSQL .

I'm not including various languages I've seen as a scientist like Lisp, but haven't used to write anything really.

Edited January 28, 2005 by Chryzopraz

[Leeloo]

And of course I'm not saying OO programming is worse or better then functional. Just that someone may prefer this or that and it does not mean one or the other is better or worse. It's based on experience and feelings one has. Of course some tools may be better suited for some jobs. But many people forget, that the best tool is the one they can use effectively, not the one that is theoretically designed best for given job.

And that's what OO-fanatics forget. They want the game OO (C++ or even Java), because it is theoretically easier, forgetting that it is not easier for the programmers, since it would include learning a new language, and that's without counting the time it would take to change the code itself.

 

And no, you will not be banned, and this has not turned into a flame yet, although it has been close, but not because of you.

[roothorick]

Also forgive me my English, it's not my mother language.

Actually, your English is a lot better than that of a lot of people I've met online who claim it's their primary language. (Nobody I've met on these forums falls under that category as far as I can remember however.) Just hang out on IRC for a while...

 

Anyway, back on topic. Figured it's appropriate to show my background:

 

BASIC (MS QBasic) -> Perl -> Python -> C and C++, and now I'm starting to learn x86 assembler. And right now I'm definitely one of the few fence-sitters on the OO topic.

[Malaclypse]

I learnt C and C++ at about the same timeframe in 92/93, together with modula-2 and scheme, but the latter two were not much used after this. I always was more used to the OO concept, also it was quite hard to get any OO lessons at all, as the hype started only a few years later at the university I was. But CT was only a minor subject of my studies at all, I mostly had to deal with TeX / LaTeX and markup languages like sgml and xml and later on with the languages of computer algebra systems like octave or maple, which are somewhat a mixture of imparative and functional languages mostly.

 

Later then, with a job, I had to use javascript, vbscript, php, mssql (don't know how the dialect is called) and c#. But then my interests switched towards modeling and using the uml language. If I'm in need to code anything, I prefer to use c# with the mono framework where possible, but that's just my personal preference

 

There are quite some other languages where I digged into, but which I have not widely used.

[Grum]

Obviously, I do everything backwards

 

Basic, Java, Clean (functional PL), C++, Fortran 77, C, x86 asm, and now learning Python.

 

Then again, I'm not a programmer, so I can be excused

[Ravenod]

I learned Basic, then Dos, then Pascal, then Turbo Pascal...

 

Now it's 12 years later, and I don't program anymore