#OOP vs. Procedural]
I have questions for you OOP and Procedural enthusiasts out there. One of the
interesting aspects of the 1993 Developers Competition will be the emergence of
teams using OOP. Last year we had a few, but none managed to do well (Magic is
OOP in some aspects, but would not be considered OOP by the traditional OOP
languages).
Now that OOP is maturing, there is interest in seeing how the OOP teams fare
against the procedural teams. This is a hot topic that has been debated
heavily in the computer columns of late (OOP vs Procedural – not how the teams
will do this year).
Most of the sentiment I have received indicates that OOP development takes more
time on the front end (yet they also claim that its makes for fast prototyping)
but that OOP makes up for it in its ability to adapt to changes.
My question is…. Given a typical database business application that is half
way through its development phase. What is an example of a program change that
would be relatively easy for a OOP developed application to handle — which for
a procedural language would cause them great consternation.
For fairness… on the procedural side, what kind of change could you throw at
an OOP developed application that would in turn cause them to thrash and gnaw
at their keyboards.
No promises are made, but if we explore the OOP vs. Procedural debate during
the competition — we may use this information to put some of these claims to
the test.
– Tom Droege, 1993 Developers Competition