> Here, the author is simply wrong. This is another common misconception about OO. You don't need strict type hierarchies. You don't even need classes at all for OO.
There are almost an infinite number of definitions of OO, I suspect the author was referring to the generally accepted and most widespread ones, which include classes and inheritance as some of their most fundamental characteristics.
"The phrase "object-oriented" means a lot of things. Half are obvious, and the other half are mistakes."
Go implements (and improves on) the obvious ones (which by the way mostly have been around for longer than the term OO itself), while avoiding the rest.
There are almost an infinite number of definitions of OO, I suspect the author was referring to the generally accepted and most widespread ones, which include classes and inheritance as some of their most fundamental characteristics.
Yes, but everyone I know who does real work with Objects knows that the textbook definitions aren't what people do with real systems. That makes it sound like the author only knows the textbook definitions.
> Yes, but everyone I know who does real work with Objects knows that the
> textbook definitions aren't what people do with real systems. That
> makes it sound like the author only knows the textbook definitions.
Phrases like 'who does real work' and 'people do with real systems' makes it sound a bit like a 'no-true-scotsman'. I imagine that was not your intent.
Anyway, I think the point is that the common perception of object systems are likely those commonly used in Java, C++, and C#. I say 'likely' simply because I am guessing that those are the more popular by volume of code written. Go has a different approach than those.
...real systems' makes it sound a bit like a 'no-true-scotsman'
Isn't there a meta-fallacy here? Sometimes there are things that experienced people don't say, but some, like inexperienced undergraduates, do.
Anyway, I think the point is that the common perception of object systems are likely those commonly used in Java, C++, and C#. I say 'likely' simply because I am guessing that those are the more popular by volume of code written. Go has a different approach than those.
There may be some selection bias here. "Everyone I know who does real work with Objects" is by happenstance mostly working in Smalltalk. The pragmatic approach most people take there involves quite a bit of duck typing. (And lots of grousing about how those interfaces aren't documented.) There's also a lot of bad legacy code that needs a refactoring cluestick there too, tbh.
There are almost an infinite number of definitions of OO, I suspect the author was referring to the generally accepted and most widespread ones, which include classes and inheritance as some of their most fundamental characteristics.
Or as Paul Graham put it ( http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/OO_programming/ ):
"The phrase "object-oriented" means a lot of things. Half are obvious, and the other half are mistakes."
Go implements (and improves on) the obvious ones (which by the way mostly have been around for longer than the term OO itself), while avoiding the rest.