TITLE: The Parable of the OO Programming Student
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: October 16, 2012  4:45 PM
DESC: 
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As The Master was setting out on a journey, a young man ran
up, knelt down before him, and asked him, "Good teacher,
what must I do to inherit the eternal bliss of OO?"

The Master answered him, "Why do you call me good?  No OO
programmer is good but
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-11.html#e2004-11-06T21_03_42.htm">
   The Creator</A>
alone.

"You know the commandments:
"'An object should have only a single responsibility.'

"'Software entities should be open for extension, but closed
for modification.'

"'Objects should be replaceable with instances of their subtypes
without altering the correctness of that program.'

"'Tell, don't ask.'

"'You shall not indulge in primitive obsession.'

"'All state is private.'"

The young man replied and said to Him, "Teacher, all of these
I have observed from my youth when first I learned to program."

The Master, looking at him, loved him and said to him,  "You
are lacking in one thing.  Go, surrender all primitive types,
and renounce all control structures.  Write all code as
messages passed between encapsulated objects, with extreme
late-binding of all things.  Then will you have treasure in
Heaven; then come, follow me."

At that statement the young man's face fell, and he went away
sad, for he possessed many data structures and algorithms.

The Master looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard
it is for those who have a wealth of procedural programming
experience to enter the kingdom of OO."

<P ALIGN="right">
   <EM>... with apologies to
   <A HREF="http://www.usccb.org/bible/scripture.cfm?bk=Mark&ch=10&v=49010017">
      The Gospel of Mark</A></EM>.  </P>
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