RE: Now I Know Why I'm Having Trouble With Objects

  • From: "Ken Perry" <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:56:34 -0400

Jim,

 

I want to make a small suggestion.  Your starting out with a very difficult
problem to use OOPO to solve.  The truth is there are a lot of ways you can
do this for a chess game and none of them are really that good.   The
problem is chess is really just  search tree and a state machine and making
objects out of nouns and methods out of actions will not make the best of
the chess games.  If you're looking to learn OOP I would suggest a game like
Monopoly or Life where you can actually have Objects work as they should for
example you could have players on Monopoly, locations that have
descriptions, prices, and things of the sort.  Maybe start with a card game
where you can have objects that deal with decks of cards and players and
score cards and things of the sort.    It's really up to you but Chess gets
too complicated to fast and then you're not really thinking OOP your trying
to decide the best method of figuring out who is winning which is a tougher
problem then you might think.

 

Ken

 

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Homme, James
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 3:27 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Now I Know Why I'm Having Trouble With Objects

 

Hi,

If it's OK, I'd like to take this a little further. I was thinking about my
little chess move validation project. I thought I would sit down and try to
write out a little plan, because my book says that the nouns become objects,
but I started to get confused when I asked myself this question. Do the
pieces move, do the squares on the board somehow get pieces, or does some
controller in the sky move the pieces? In the real world, the controller
would be the player who is moving the pieces. The pieces can't move them
selves, and all the board can do is sit there and have pieces on its
squares. The rules would be another object, would they not? Oh my head.

 

Jim

 

Jim Homme,

Usability Services,

Phone: 412-544-1810. Skype: jim.homme. NonVisualDevelopment.org: Blind
people can drive computers <http://www.nonvisualdevelopment.org/> .
Demonstration GUI Programs: You can program GUI's while blind.
<http://www.fruitbasketdemos.org/>  

 

From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Homme, James
Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 3:20 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Now I Know Why I'm Having Trouble With Objects

 

Hi,

I found this humorous.

 

Understanding the Parts of VBA "Speech"

 

If you were going to play soccer using BASIC, the instruction to kick a ball
would look something like

 

"Kick the Ball"

 

Hey-this is how we talk! It makes sense. You have a verb (kick) and then a
noun (the ball). In the BASIC code in the preceding section, you have a verb

(print) and a noun (an asterisk). Life is good.

 

Here is the problem. VBA doesn't work like this. No object-oriented language
works like this. In an object-oriented language, the objects (the nouns) are

most important (hence, the name: object oriented). If you are going to play
soccer with VBA, the basic structure would be:

 

Ball.Kick

 

You have a noun-the ball. It comes first. In VBA, this is an object

. Then you have the verb-to kick. It comes next. In VBA, this is a method.

 

The basic structure of VBA is a bunch of lines of code where you have

 

Object.Method

 

Sorry, this is not English. If you took a romance language in high school,
you will remember that they used a "noun adjective" construct, but I don't
know

anyone who speaks in "noun verb" when telling someone to do something. Do
you talk like this?

 

Water.Drink

Food.Eat

Girl.Kiss

 

Of course not. That is why VBA is so confusing to someone who previously
stepped foot in a procedural programming class.

 

Let's carry the analogy on a bit. Imagine you walk onto a grassy field and
there are five balls in front of you. There is a soccer ball, a basketball,
a

baseball, a bowling ball, and a tennis ball. You want to instruct the kid on
your soccer team to

 

Kick the soccer ball

 

If you tell him kick the ball (or ball.kick

), you really aren't sure which one he will kick. Maybe he will kick the one
closest to him. This could be a real problem if he is standing in front of

the bowling ball.

 

 

Jim

 

Jim Homme,

Usability Services,

Phone: 412-544-1810. Skype: jim.homme. NonVisualDevelopment.org: Blind
people can drive computers <http://www.nonvisualdevelopment.org/> .
Demonstration GUI Programs: You can program GUI's while blind.
<http://www.fruitbasketdemos.org/>  

 

 

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