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Comment by laserlight | Hacker News Reader

If you aren't going to use polymorphism to vary behavior, but depend on conditionals, what do you use classes for? Just for hierarchical data encapsulation?

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Afaik, data-oriented approach doesn't use classes to encapsulate behavior.

Surprise: I don't use classes. Rust doesn't have them. :P

So, you’ve been arguing for using switch statements, instead of Clean Code’s suggestion of using object-oriented polymorphism, in a context where polymorphism doesn’t exist?

Not at all. Not having classes is not the same as not having polymorphism. Rust supports polymorphism just fine (and one could argue its support for polymorphism is actually much more advanced than that of Java's; but that's not enough reason to use it everywhere).

The greatest trick OOP ever pulled was convincing the world that polymorphism didn't exist outside OOP.

How are structs in Rust any different than classes?

Behavior and data is more separated

A struct only contains data, however you e.g. can define methods on it or implement traits for it No inheritance.

They don’t only contain data though, you can define methods as you said. Yes, there is no-inheritance, but they contain data, maintain state, and allow for defined methods. 90% of the time people are talking about classes, they are talking about that.

I use multiple languages and I always consider the context of programming advice. I recommend a broadened perspective.

In general I would rather maintain code by someone who have read Clean Code than by someone who considers it beneath them because they are too elite.

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