Hi-
Good essay.  I must admit that making objects SEEM to be physical is sometimes
a detriment.  I then expect them to behave like a physical object, and of
course they don't.  I have found that simulated physicality only extends so
far, and then it makes things more difficult.
David

"Richard A. O'Keefe" wrote:

> diegogomezdeck at consultar.com thinks that computational objects
> are, or should be, like physical objects.
>         The Object Orientation paradigm is good just because the
>         "computational objects" are similar to real objects (or objects we
>         perceive as reals (to be matrix-compatible)).
>
> At various times I've learned, or tried to learn, Simula 67, Smalltalk,
> T, CLOS, ECMAScript, Objective C, C++, Object Pascal, NewtonScript
> (total failure there, I'm afraid; maybe if I'd had a Newton to play with
> it would have been different), Eiffel, Sather, Cecil, Self, XLispStat,
> and a couple of others remembered with less fondness.  I've read (or
> tried to read) OOPSLA proceedings until my head buzzed.  I think I have
> a fair idea of what the object orientation paradigm is about.  (That is
> NOT to claim any skill in its application or any hand in its advancement;
> I am claiming knowledge, not ability.)  And for what it's worth, I have
> an MSc in underwater acoustics, so I have _some_ academic as well as
> practical idea of how physical objects behave.
>
> And I honestly cannot see ANY useful resemblance between
> computational objects and real physical objects.
>
> Computational objects do not have mass; do not occupy space; do not
> emit or absorb photons (so don't have colour); it makes no sense to
> ask about the velocity of sound through a Workspace or the tension
> in a String.
>
> Even in Morphic, which gives a pretty good illusion of reality,
> if you "drop" a morph, it doesn't fall.  The "shadows" we see on the
> screen are totally unaffected by the location of light sources in the
> room.
>
>         The gap between the virtual-objects and the real ones is not zero,
>
> "not zero" appears to be a euphemism for "mindbogglingly immense".
>
>         but we have to go in the direction of reducing the gap and
>         not in the direction of make our virtual-objects more different.
>
> Why?  If I write a letter to my mother on paper with ink, I will have
> *no* success trying to push it through a wire.  If I send her e-mail,
> she'll get it in minutes through that same wire which was totally
> impermeable to paper.  Making e-messages more like physical objects
> would make them *less* useful, not *more*.
>
>         We're playing with concrete objects and we're creating
>         abtraction/reduction to classify to univers from our first
>         minutes as human beings.
>
> To the extent that this is true, so what?
>
>         Everybody (including all the smalltalk experts) are much more
>         trained in working with real objects than with virtual ones
>         (computational objects in your words).
>
> And we are arguably much more trained in working with *social*
> concepts than with physical ones.  Babies are born with nontrivial
> social skills; far better than their physical skills.  Computational
> objects at present resemble *social* entities much more than they do
> *physical* entities.  They are like language, and music, not
> billiard balls and rocks.  If my children are any guide, they are
> fluent talkers (that is, good at dealing with social and "virtual"
> concepts) before they stop bumping into doors.
>
>         If you agree with me in the last sentence surely we'll agree on
>         the big convenience of trying to emulate the real objects.
>
> Not in the least.  The fact that I've been breating air longer than
> I've been typing does not in the least imply that typing should be
> made more like breathing.
>
> Emulating physical objects is a *useful* thing to do *some of the time*.
>
> But take information retrieval, a very common task for computers.
> What physical objects, other than human beings, are relevant to that
> task?  How would making some of the components subject to emulated
> gravity, or emulated proton decay, or emulated combustion, or whatever,
> help my student make a better information retrieval system?
>
>         If we resign to the phrase "COMPUTATIONAL OBJECTS ARE NOT
>         PHYSICAL OBJECTS" we'll finish with just another artificial
>         model (just like relational- algebra, etc).
>
> Well, I've got nothing against relational algebra.  (I spit on SQL,
> of course.  Anything which has the very inventor of relational
> algebra practically incandescent with rage as a something which
> claims to be relational but isn't, probably _isn't_ a good example
> of relational algebra.)  Relational algebra as Codd and Maier and
> people like that developed it is a _very_ nice tool for certain jobs.
> (I certainly found it easier to master and far more convenient for
> developing queries than SQL.)
>
> Frankly, no matter what we do, we are going to "finish with just
> another artificial model".  What else could we end up with?  It's not
> as if some pagan deity was going to breathe life into our statue or
> turn our wooden puppet into a real boy, eh?  ANYTHING humans make is
> going to be a human-made (= artificial) thing, and none the worse for
> that.  The best we can hope for in our models is beauty and utility.
>
> Let me put it this way:  my Macintosh is still running 8.6, because
> MacOS 9 was headed down a "photo-realistic" path and I didn't like it.
> My colleagues are running MacOS X (on more recent machines).  Sometimes
> I think I'd like it (hey, if it has UNIX underneath it has to be good).
> Then I look at the "photorealistic" icons, try it for a bit, and realise
> once again that the more an icon looks like a "real" object the harder
> it is for me personally to use.
>
> Some of Popper's work, especially his attack on quantum mechanics,
> hasn't stood the test of time.  But his metaphor of the three worlds
> makes a lot of sense.
>     World 1 = the objective phsyical world
>     World 2 = subjective mind
>     World 3 = objective ideas existing independently of their origin
>               in World 2.
> What has that to do with this thread?  This:  people live in Worlds 2
> and 3 just as much as they live in World 1.  Object models are part of
> World 3.  They do not resemble, and need not resemble, world 1 objects
> any more than mathematical theorems or poems do.