[fmstephe]

It is true that there is some being, or noun, that is implicitly taking out the garbage in his example. I think the important thing to note is that we can happily describe the process of taking out the garbage without mentioning who does it.

If we step back and look at it in terms of programming the principle here is that an Object Oriented insistence on defining and instantiating a doer for every action is unnecessary clutter.

When a programming paradigm makes people insist that 'everything is an object' or more alternatively 'static methods are terrible' we have strayed from simply finding ways to directly describe what we want a computer to do. We are instead forced into being object oriented.

The example nursery rhymes are a fantastic example of what this culture leads to. That is my daily life and it can be a horror.

I don't think that Steve Yegge would claim that objects are bad, but it is a very effective parody of modern Java programming (perhaps C++ and others but I don't do any of that).

I feel his essay is an excellent rebuttal to the complaint that a piece of code is 'not very object oriented' in some corners of the programming world objects have become and end in themselves. Steve is humorously pointing out that there are alternatives.

[KevinEldon]

This was a very nice clarification; thank you. I think your point to look at this 'in terms of the programming principle' identifies the truth that Yegge is getting at, the functions should be first class, without the clutter of the English metaphor.