On Mon, 26 May 2003 11:40:08 +1200 (NZST), 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.
> 

was it worth to learn all those languages ?

> And I honestly cannot see ANY useful resemblance between
> computational objects and real physical objects.
> 

i personally do not share your opinion that (i cite) "i cannot see ANY 
usefull resemblance between computation and real physical objects". why not? 
my mind is just an interpreter of what i sense, so why not to persuade myself 
that the things on my screen resemble to real objects ? i can persuade 
myself, when i see fish on a tv screen, that there is a fish somewhere in 
some see. you cannot?

> 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*.
> 

i think you will agree that a wooden door is not a computation object.

if i write write a letter to somebody on paper with ink, i will have no 
success to push it through closed door...

... so what is your objection against believing in seeing true objects on a 
computer screen. (of course, i do not say that all objects should be 
considered as real objects)

> 	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.
> 

why do you consider the social capabilities of a baby nontrivial and far 
better than their physical skills? why should we try to compare them in this 
sense? i think that it is sufficient to say that baby has social capabilities 
and that it has physical skills, nothing more... i do not want to compare 
them...i want to see and examine how do they interact, not whether one of 
them is superior to the other one.

> 	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.
> 

i think you have misused human language and concentrated on the word "longer" 
in the above sentence. that longitude forms something like a connection 
between the breathing and the typing in your sentence. the result: a complete 
nonsense.

> 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.

i am glad you mentioned those three worlds of karl popper. i was thinking to 
use them in the discussion (but in a different context). thank you.