Hi Monks,

oop dogs me. Several times during my longstanding activities with computers i made efforts to understand and spiritualize the mechanisms of object-oriented programming.

• i purchased (yes, really) the MS-C++-Compiler, version 1.5, i mention, and followed the lessons to build up the drawing-program "scribble". Well, i did some chapters and it worked but i didn't really understand why.
• i tried to follow the java-trail and all i got was a waving duke.
• there also was an (very little)attempt with smalltalk. I only remember that smalltalk persists all object-properties and methods and smalltalk-programms grow with these.

In the end all these attempts remained fruitless. I mention the reason for this defeat was the missing practical use.

That changed with perl. The esoterics began to vanish when i saw the way perl puts oop into action. The use of blessed hashreferences showed me the "simple" way perl realizes objects. Though i'm mostly still a "sequential" programmer, i think i've understand oop fairly and i'm able to use it. Meanwhile i wrote a few applications which successful use the advantages that come with oop. On the way to realization some great "aha-experiences" happened to me. Especially the polymorpistic behavior of objects impressed me and made programming in some cases much more easier and clearer.

But it seems that my efforts went into a false direction. Everywhere i can read that neither perl nor C++ is suitable for real oop. Even with Java one isn't sure if that is. "The one and only genuine oop-language is smalltalk".

How shall i interpret these statements. Are these postings kind of "religious wars" or is smalltalk really the philosopher's stone regarding oop? In other words:

is it worth making the effort to learn smalltalk and does it bring benefits to the practical daily work or is it more of academical interest ?

I would like to know what you think about.

regards and a happy new year, tos

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