[bluGill]

OOP is very useful/powerful, don't throw the good parts out. Java messed up by deciding everything must be an object when there are many other useful way to program. (you can also argue that smalltalk had a better object model, but even then all objects isn't a good thing). Functional programing is very powerful and a good solution to some problems. Procedural programing is very powerful and a good solution to some problems. You can do both in Java - but you have to wrap everything in an object anyway despite the object not adding any value.

[igouy]

> everything must be an object when there are many other useful way to program.

Perhaps you would prefer a multi-paradigm programming language?

http://mozart2.org/mozart-v1/doc-1.4.0/tutorial/index.html

[kragen]

Java was derived from C++, Smalltalk, and arguably Cedar, and one of its biggest differences from C++ and Smalltalk is that in Java things like integers, characters, and booleans aren't objects, as they are in C++ and Smalltalk. (Cedar didn't have objects.)

[bluGill]

Right. Everything a user can do is object, but there are a few non-object built ins. (they are not objects in C++ either, but C++ doesn't make everything you write be an object)

[kragen]

In C++ integers and characters are objects. See https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/objects.html, for example, which explicitly mentions "unsigned char objects", "a bit-field object", "objects of type char", etc.

[dpark]

I feel this is a case of using the same word to mean something different. C++ “object” here seems to mean something more akin to “can be allocated and stuffed into an array” than a Smalltalk-type object.

i.e. C++ primitive types are defined to be objects but do not fit into a traditional object-oriented definition of “object”.

[kragen]

Yes, many people believe that C++ isn't really "object-oriented", including famously Alan Kay, the inventor of the term. Nevertheless, that is the definition of "object" in C++, and Java is based on C++, Smalltalk, and Cedar, and makes an "object"/"primitive" distinction that C++, Smalltalk, and Cedar do not, so "Java [did something] by deciding everything must be an object" is exactly backwards.

[bluGill]

I'm not sure who invented "object oriented", but objects were invented by Simula in 1967 (or before, but first released then?) and that is where C++ takes the term from. Smalltalk-80 did some interesting things on top of objects that allow for object oriented programming.

In any case, Alan Kay is constantly clear that object oriented programming is about messages, which you can do in C++ in a number of ways. (I'm not sure exactly what Alan Kay means here, but it appears to exclude function calls, but would allow QT signal/slots)

[gpderetta]

C++ standard gets the definition of object from the C standard, i.e. a bunch of memory with a type.

Nothing to do with the objects of OOP.

[dpark]

To be clear, I’m not trying to pick at whether or not C++ is “really object oriented”.

What I’m saying is that the discrepancy between primitives in C++ and Java is entirely one of definition. Java didn’t actually change this. Java just admitted that “objects” that don’t behave like objects aren’t.

[bluGill]

Just like Java, you cannot inherit from integers or characters. Depending on what you want to do with them that might or might not matter.

[kragen]

That's true, and in Smalltalk it's not true. In Cedar there is no inheritance. At any rate it's not a case of Java making more things objects than its forebears.

[lmm]

> At any rate it's not a case of Java making more things objects than its forebears.

There are other cases though. E.g. in C++ you could always have function pointers which were not objects and functions which were not methods. In Java you had to use instances of anonymous classes in place of function pointers, and all of your functions had to be (possibly static) methods.