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2 points by absz 5892 days ago | link | parent

I've skimmed the SICP link, and that does look like a good method. But I don't think they're mutually exclusive. As Jonathan Rees points out (http://paulgraham.com/reesoo.html), the definition of OOP varies; having just inheritance (coughjavacough) does make that problematic. Ruby's mixins and duck typing allow "is-a" without inheritance, thus alleviating some of the complaints.

I think that describing certain things, e.g. a windowing system, in terms of classes and objects does result in a useful description. "My window contains a button and a text field" maps nicely to an OO model. The implementation can (perhaps should) be user-level and/or functional with closures, but that modeling system can be powerful.

And of course, some of this is "taste;" I can't think very well in a visual paradigm, but I love a symbolic one. OOP may be orthogonal to your mental processes, in which case don't use it.