The ruling elite has long been set on destroying the ability of people at large to communicate. The standard tool of the elite in the modern age has been to dominate discourse by destroying language.
I worked as a programmer and watch in horror as the technorati systematically destroyed the ability of people to communicate about computer programs.
One example of the destruction is seen in the misuse of the term "object."
Back in the 1960s, people had robust conversations about computer programming.
The conversations were often laden with cumbersome details about different data structures. A man name Alan Kays used the abstract term "object" to refer to groups of programs that encapsulated the data. The objects communicated via messages.
This conversation ushered in wonderful conversations about system engineering called "Object Oriented Design."
I love Object Oriented Design.
The abstract term "object-oriented" became the buzzword of the day.
The technorati wanted to capture the term. They managed to convince the world that the class structure in "C with Classes" was the ultimate object-oriented system.
Aaaarrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!
There were two huge gaps in the development of Oject Oriented Programming.
The first gap is this. Object-Oriented Design is a fun way to design computer systems. It was not the only way, and there was never a discussion if it was the best way. For example, Relational Database Systems were built on a robust mathematical model and still outperform OOPS systems for many data centric applications.
The second gap is that there never was a good debate as to whether or not the class structure is the best way to realize the ideals of object-oriented design.
During the 1990s the Technorati formed into a mob and forced a second rate technology down our collective gullet.
Now, I am pretty good at writing programs that implement ideas from different programming paradigms. I am probably better than most at writing programs in Java and C++.
I don't like publishing these programs because, quite frankly, I think the code is ugly.
I don't like having a class structure in the work place and I don't like using class structures in my computer code.
I've worked on several java servlets. Some of the code was written by PhD wielding designers. I found all of the code to be hideous.
I worked at two companies that wasted millions of dollars writing code to the ideals of C++.
Every time I tried to suggest returning to traditional codes, the system-overlords would just put me down.
Java programmers like to move complex business rules from within procedures into the programming interface. Moving the complexity from within a procedure into the interface might look cool, but it makes the program more difficult to maintain.
I might have an overdeveloped sense of integrity, but I would be embarrassed to sell the computer code that comes out of many modern software shops.
I should probably mention, I have a long history of losing every argument. I would put together a good argument as to why a particular argument as to the program is not working the way it should. In every case, the system architects would dismiss well formed arguments with a snide put down.
Apparently I am not the only one frustrated with the class structure used by many modern programmers. The programmers at Firefox were so fed up with the complex object structure of the Mozilla browser that they created a new functional programming language called Rust and rewrote the browser.
Rust is a different story.
My story is that I liked the direction that Alan Kay was following when he coined the term "object-oriented."
Object Oriented Design provides an abstract framework for discussing system design.
Efforts to impose object-oriented thinking onto the programming public seem to have gone awry.
I was unable to stand against the technorati in my personal career. I hope that programmers of the next generation call out the technorati for the mess that they made of the programming world by trying to impose the class structure of C with Classes on every single programming system.
I would like to step back from the programming world for a moment. I think this pattern of a group (in programming it's the technorati) trying to gain control by manipulating language in common throughout society.
The process is similar to politically correct speech. In politically correct speech, the rulers try to control the people through speech codes.
Alan Kays coined the term "object-oriented" as a tool for discussing design.
Object Oriented Programming, on the other hand, was developed as a tool for placing constraints on programmers.
Anyway, this is enough ranting for the day. I drew the picture by RossHellen from BigStockPhoto. It shows two designers having a conversation while staring at a computer screen.