Re: How can I learn about Object Oriented programming with lua?

[Andrew Starks <andrew.starks@...>]

On Thursday, February 27, 2014, steve donovan <steve.j.donovan@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 1:03 PM, Journeyer J. Joh
> <oosaprogrammer@gmail.com> wrote:
> > When I first saw OO, I felt OO is the one I can do everything only if I can
> > I understand what you are trying to say now.
> > I even feel sorry for you because you wrote too much to me spending your
> > expensive time.
>
> Don't worry about us - we do this because we enjoy writing about this
> stuff, plus it will be useful for others searching the list archives.
>
> Sean's koan is great - there is no single great thing.  A wise
> programmer knows when to pick up a screwdriver and when to pick up a
> hammer.  A big problem with Java is that its designers decided that
> hammers would solve all problems.

...and that nouns would solve all problems. 

Imagine how you would go about implementing an arbitrary property pattern in Java or C++. You want to be able to name a property, store any value type in it. Pass it around, etc. 

You may need *some* extra code in Lua, at some point, but the code for that pattern starts out like this:

my_obj.properties.foo = any_value_of_any_type

Test to see if foo is on an object?

my_obj.properties.foo == nil

At some point, you may want to know the property's parent object. You can add that later, without needing to refactor a bunch of scaffolding that gave you the ability to store any value into any arbitrarily named field. 

Testing becomes that much more important. :)

But it looks like implementing patterns in Lua is not possible, sometimes because there is little or nothing to do. 

-Andrew