Ok, this is getting worse then election year in the states.  The sheer
volume of controversial, incorrect and downright nonsensical comments
made in this thread is just out of control.

On 8/28/07, Fabio Filasieno <fabio.filasieno at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There is a high risk of developing
> functions that you don't need. This is on of the main critics OOP.

Oh?  I did a quick google search and I did see a lot of complaints,
though none of them were "developing functions that you don't need".
How do you determine this is one of the main criticisms?  A link
please.

> When I was a bit younger I often made this mistake:
>
> Lets a make a nice apple object. The nice apple must have the `eat` method
> of course. An apple that cannot be eaten is rally a terrible apple, is it?
> So let's invest some time in our apple `eat` method. But here is the mistake
> ...
> you are writing code to make pies. You will never eat the apple directly.
> You have just spent brain and time budget on something useless: the `eat`
> method on the apple object. I bet this is the main reason for code bloat in
> OOP and Smalltalk too.

Is no one else ever going to use your Apple class?  The core classes
in Smalltalk/Squeak are there to be general.  Not for one application.

> Now you can't tell me that  :
> data select: ... | map: ... | collect: ...
> this NOT understandable.... it's only a bit verbose... but since it's
> functional it's CLEAR

Since it's functional style it's clear?  Based on what?  Because *you* know it?

> Give it time. Functional programming has this amazing property that you can
> easily reason about problems, especially when side-effect free.

Given your statements on this list I suspect I am much more well
versed in functional programming then you are.

> I want that in Smalltalk.
> I can't do it with parenthesis. It disturbs me. I have to break my thoughts.
> I need the pipe.

So add it.  If anyone else has your problem they may use it too.

> And I'm sure that any functional programmer (from ocaml, erlang , haskell,
> ... ) would understand what I'm talking about.

I use all those languages and I understand function composition.  But
the problem is you vastly overstate the "pipe" operator.  If it's so
important to functional programming why is it not even present in:
Ocaml [1] (or any ML for that matter), Erlang, Lisp.... actually, come
to think of it the only two places I know of that have such an
operator is certain Unix shells and Haskell.

The fact is it doesn't even play such a large role in Haskell.  The
function composition operator (the period) is much much more
important.

[1] http://caml.inria.fr/mantis/view.php?id=2415