class properties in c++

[Rob Wehrli]

> I understand that for the mediocre engineer names mean nothing. But to
take

What planet are you from, man?  You're saying that the "difference" between
"function" and "method" and "operation" *names* is some kind of metric for
determining what makes mediocre engineers?

> care of every aspect of you job is what separates the mediocre from the

Spoken like a true "QA" guy...my point is that we're not perfect.  We, as a
species, are not so good at taking care of *every* aspect of "you" job.  We
make mistakes.  We're error prone.  We are mediocre as a species because of
our errors and our methods that allow us to send them out even when we know
it.  However, perfection is not our goal.


> great. Just like I tell some of the teaches I work with, if we are sloppy
in
> our words, and names, we are sloppy in our work. After all if the words,
and

OK.  So you and some of the "teaches" you work with are sloppy in your work
because you pick your words less carefully than perfection dictates.  Your
admission that you're mediocre comes as no surprise when the entire race is
basically in the same boat.

> names, are just slung around, how will any one doing maintenance on the
code

So, now you're back on, pointing the finger at anyone who calls a "method"
(your choice of terms) a "function" (their choice of terms) simply because
of some pseudo-religious belief you have regarding naming here?  I'm perhaps
one of the stronger proponents of quality naming decision making and
conventional naming practices.  If we assume that to be true and if we
assume that I have any skill at all in it, wouldn't I be just as "picky" as
you about calling a method a function?  So what you're really saying is,
"Rob, you're a mediocre engineer because you are sloppily calling methods
functions."  Hell, I call them operations, too.  I guess that I should be
immediately excommunicated among C++ and OO programmers and relegated to a
life of writing spaghetti BASIC code the rest of my days.

> know what the intent was? After all this is the problem in maintenance,
> knowing what was indented so that the fix, or change, may be applied
> properly.

Huh?  Knowing what was indented?  Do you mean intended?  Perhaps your word
choices here are a reflection of your "if we are sloppy in our word, and
names, we are sloppy in our work" in practice?  Some kind of
"self-fulfilling" prophecy?  By your own admission, we are sloppy because we
make errors.  Wow.  We better alert the media.  NEWS FLASH HUMANS MAKE
ERRORS details at 6 and 10.

>
> After all as any Object Oriented engineer knows, there are many things
from

Which engineering discipline is a OOE?  Is that electrical, mechanical,
civil, nuclear, chemical, biological...help me out here.

> structural engineering that do not fit the goal of OOE (Object Oriented
> Engineering). By the way, with many schools still teaching structural
> techniques, are you that certain that everyone knows what we are talking
> about?

Just because procedural programming (how did "engineering" get infused with
every kind of programming?) is still very common in many schools doesn't
mean that students are not familiar with OO concepts.  I'm quite certain
that YOU don't have a clue about what I'm talking about.  I recall that you
were the guy telling the PLUG devel world that a Dealer ISA Player.  You
were pushing your crap design onto this group as if it was the world's best
thing.  It must have had 100 "OOP holes" in it and now you're saying "we"
are mediocre because we are sloppy in making the *obvious* distinction
between function and method when you couldn't "explain" it in any reasonable
way?  Get off your soapbox and get off of the notion that you've got some
kind of clue.  I don't resent you for not knowing.  It is natural to not
know something.  I resent you for spewing forth here in this forum as if you
DO know, when all you have is a set of BS opinions and quite a bit of
*obvious* misinformation about what OO is really all about and you think
that you're too good for the rest of us who are just trying to learn and
share here.

Don't lump together simple sentences such as procedural programming doesn't
provide for the goals of OOP...especially by calling it "engineering."
Structural Engineering is akin to building bridges, skyscrapers and such,
structural programming is entirely different.  Anyone who would mix *these
terms* is either trying to add "weight" to an argument or simply a very poor
user of terms.  I think that you'd be very hard pressed to find your
proposed acronym "OOE" in any real place where OO is talked about...except
in such likely instances where it is just about ALWAYS accompanyied by
"Software," as in Object Oriented Software Engineering.


>
> I would like to say that I am not trying to put any one down. As a
manager,
> and a teacher, I always try to improve everyone I work with, or teach.
Maybe

Are you really a "teacher?"  Whom do you teach?  Maybe you should spend more
time and energy trying to improve yourself and make yourself competent
before "always" trying to improve others...especially in situations where
they're calling a method a function or some other relatively synonymous
term.  If you were so blasted right about this, why don't you follow the
trend of OOADers and say Operation?  I'm guessing that you'd like to ramble
on for hours about whether you prefer Booch to Jacobsen.  I remember seeing
oh soooo many posts on the various OO usenet groups regarding your theories
and findings.

> I live in a dream world, but I live to see the day when the general public

Let me know when you finally wake up, because I, for one, am getting tired
of your "sharing" your dream world out loud.

> finds that software is reliable, dependable, and so useful they look
forward
> to using it. I can not stand hearing all the jokes about software, and
> software developers, producing crap, But after all the general public has

If you can not stand it, then quit offering it.  What does it take for you
to just be one of the people searching for answers like the rest of us?  Are
we supposed to blindly follow your spewing that Dealer ISA Player now?  How
much thinking went into *that* design?  Why not lecture me at length about
your reasons for using interfaces-based models for inter-object
communication?  What do you see as the pros and cons in public, private and
protected members?  Why not go in-depth about why you think that Dealer is a
specialization of Player? ...and why that would make such a good OO design?

> developed the attitude "hey this is not Burger King you can not have it
your
> way" and is this the right way to treat them? I can not see how anyone can
> be happy working in an industry that has the reputation for being a
> necessary evil we have to live with.

There are those of us who have to fight the battles every day that just
because the simplicity and proliferation of tools has made it easier for
non-programmers to write programs, we do care about the software we produce
because we're professionals and we do take our work seriously.  That is not
to say that we do not make errors, in fact, we expect to make many of them
in the course of a development activity.  What we do is design our programs
in such a way that they enable us to make errors and make changes in such a
way as to fix them so that we can move onward.  I think that it is clear
that "we" will never mean "all."  And, these days, it seems that we is
really a much smaller group than ever before...and that there are WAY TOO
MANY people who push their own little bent ideas at a "unsuspecting" group
of developing programmers because they are "teachers" and "managers" and
have some kind of way of talking as if they are right all the time.

>
> All I am trying to do is to show that by taking care of what we do, and
> being the best at it, we can produce great software every time and the
> consumer wins when this happens.

If that is all you're trying to do, then stick to QA and let "real"
programmers do the programming.  Catch the errors you find, let the
programmers know about them so they can fix them and keep trying to learn
how to develop decent OO applications.  Don't make the rest of us suffer
through your discovery process as if you already know all the answers and
are better than the rest of us because you're a "manager" and you're a
"teacher."  What are you going to teach us next?  Methods are not functions?
Just because you say it, it doesn't mean JACK.  If you're going to go out on
that limb, then, damn it, you better have a half-way decent argument as to
why the rest of us should change.  Either that, or KYFMS.  Think about it.
All of this because you had to tell some guy that "methods, not functions.
I am right and you are wrong."  Tell me this, if Herb Schildt, Andy Koenig
and Scott Meyers were sitting in the room and they said "then you call this
function," would you pipe up and tell them that it isn't a function, it is a
method?  Of course, you could offer that they would never say such a thing;
but the last time I sat with Scott Meyers and gang and talked, I didn't
notice any distinct avoidance of "function" in their vocabularies.  Also,
Stan Lippmann uses functions synonymously with method and operation in my
discussions with him.  How about a random web site?
http://mason.gmu.edu/~herwin/debug.html where a CS 310 class professor named
Harry Erwin uses "function" quite a bit, too.  Maybe your teaching skills
have surpassed his accomplishments, too.  Maybe, like the rest of us, he's
just backwards.

>
> Thank You,
>
> David Demland
> Qa/Process Manager
> CADTEL Systems, Inc.
> 11201 N. Tatum Ste. 200
> Phoenix, AZ 85028
> (602) 648-6054
> Fax: (602) 953-4833
> ddemland@cadtel.com

PS.  Sorry to be so "unkind" in this message.  Sometimes you have to whack
the drunken bum "upside" the head with the empty Vodka bottle to let them
know that they're a drunken bum.  Meanwhile, I think that none of us want to
"turn away" someone who really wants to be a "contributor" to this list.  If
you want to play nice, I'll play nice, too.  If you want to spew forth, take
it somewhere else.  No one promoted me to BS Police Chief, but then again, I
too care about how "we" as programmers are received by the population of
users.  I guess that if I'm ever looking for a job at CADTEL, I'd better not
use you as a reference, huh?  You're not going to like me from now on
because I wouldn't play your little game of what you believe is true is true
for the rest of us too.  Why not admit to yourself that you've only got half
a clue and work like the rest of us at finding the other half rather than
spending time and energy telling us that you already found it?  I think that
once you come down off of your pedestal, the rest of us will be glad to help
you along the way.  Now it is my turn to jump off of the BS Police pedestal
and get back in line with all the other searchers.  Maybe go to a patterns
group meeting.  Learn from some of the many good programmers around the
valley that there are some really good things to do when you start
"objectively" sharing.  :)

Take Care.

Rob!