Special featured topic for 2006: Pseudo Object-Oriented Programming

We're seeing more and more examples of distorted understandings of what OOP is about, and we're seeing them not only in actual software development projects, but also in textbooks and journals. Many project failures can be attributed to this phenomenon, and object technology itself is being unfairly discredited in some organizations.

• Pseudo Classes and Quasi-Classes Confuse Object-Oriented programming. A 1998 look at an all-too-common bad-design pattern.
• Pseudo Object-Oriented Programming Considered Harmful -- a look at a distressing trend and misguided practice. From ACM SIGPLAN Notices April, 2002
• Popular Trade Journals Promote Pseudo-Objects

General

• Operator-overloading controversy: Taming the Plus Sign—An old canard refuses to die.

• Programming Standards Should Emphasize Results;—It's the end-product that counts.

• Avoid Redundant Data Validation—Why do "experts" recommend this silly and potentially harmful practice?

• Too Many String Data Items—Why do OOP gurus shun objects?

• Conventions for related entity, name, and identifier classes—further clarification of some often misunderstood distinctions.

• Stop computing factorials—further explanation of a trivial issue.

• Data Item Taxonomy—A clarification of an essential distinction in object-oriented class design.

• Point-Extent Pattern for Dimensioned Numeric Classes, ACM SIGPLAN Notices, November, 1997.
  An essential technique in oveloading numeric operators

Java specific

• New in November: A Standard Library Abomination—Obstacles to using dates in Java.

  New in October: In Java Hardly Anything Is an Object!—Does Java undermine OOP?

• Some Objects Shouldn't Be Hashed—a dissent from the Java "contract".

• Java's Casts of Thousands Observations about a serious obstacle to maintaining large Java programs

• The Dark Side of Java
Early reactions to Java as a development language and as a teaching language
• Conventions for arithmetic operations in Java
How best to circumvent a Java shortcoming
• Self-documenting Code Unrealized in JavaDoc

C/C++ specific

• Contiguous character strings in C++—Addressing a long-standing complaint.
• "C++ as a Better C" revisited— an excellent language for pure procedural programming.
• Thoughts on some Proposed C Coding Standards -- IEEE publication misses the point.
• Coping with C character strings -- A long-standing issue keeps reappearing. Is it fair to blame the language for bugs in software products?
• Objects before strings -- Many instances of character-strings really ought to be objects.
• Choosing a string class -- Is std::string always appropriate?
• Assign-to-self Overkill (1 page): A comment on a common misunderstanding in C++ courses and textbooks.
• A Mild Dissent from a Growing Practice-- An inquiry into the growing concern with the sequence of sections in a class.
• Why Can't Authors Get Operator Overloading Right? -- An inquiry into a surprisingly common pitfall.
• Outgrowing Macrophobia -- The preprocessor can greatly simplify program organization and help enforce standards.