What’s Eating OOP: throw out ideological purity, go multi-paradigm

It's well and good to tell people to "think!" instead of following dogma, but what if you are too inexperienced to think clearly about the issue? Ideological purity makes sense if you face something overwhelmingly complex and don't really know the best way to handle it. By following a set of strict rules, you gain an illusion of control that helps you move forward. It is cargo cult, it is the golden hammer, it is the silver bullet, but it keeps appearing for a reason.

I think we should recognize ideological purity for what it is: an aid to help inexperienced programmers keep their sanity.

The big problem is that this purity is too often labelled Best Practices, and people are given no incentives (or even permission) to break free from it.

It struck me today that C++ templates really provide a kind of static duck typing. The syntax is hideous but I really like this approach in principle. It's a bit like Scala's structural types - almost all of the flexibility of dynamic typing but with the benefits of static typing.

Glad we're seeing so much experimentation with mixing paradigms, then. Scala, Clojure --- mixing metaphors may turn out to be the winning strategy.

Deestan, that's an awesome point. I've included it in the article. I've also made a few other edits based on feedback.

ha I misread that as GOP (Grand Old Party = US Republicans) :o)