OO Considered Harmful

Speaker: Phil Nash

Audience level: Beginner | Intermediate | Advanced

Is C++ on OO language? What does it mean to be an OO language anyway? What were the original goals, and how have they turned out?

What other approaches are there? Some say there was nothing wrong with Structured Programming and we should go back to that. Others push for a more Functional approach. There's also Logic Programming and others. Is there one right answer? Does it depend? Does it blend?

Experienced C++ programmers think of C++ as a Multi-Paradigm language, capable of moving between paradigms as needed. But is it particularly good at any particular one? Is that focus shifting? Where is it going, and why? What can we learn from other languages.

If all this sounds very abstract, be assured that we will look at real code and techniques you can apply today or, in some cases, the near future - as well as a glimpse of what may be down the road. More importantly we try to put it in a context that helps answer "why?"

Along the way we'll take a tour through C++'s approach to OO, Generic Programming and Functional Programming.