[smosher]

I couldn't help but notice this phrase:

[X] is nice but [Y] will get you most of the way and [dealing with the difference] is simple.

reads a lot like the Blub conceit. I'm not accusing you of that, but I do disagree that OO can give you what pattern matching typically does.

[seanmcdirmid]

I live ok without pattern matching and I build compilers/runtimes for a living; is that blub conceit?

I also have no problem with the expression problem. C# has partial classes anyways, which work even if type checking is non-modular. Of course, I would like it if C# support some form of pattern matching, but not enough to switch over to F# (whose pattern matching isn't as rich as Scala's, anyways).

[smosher]

> I live ok without pattern matching and I build compilers/runtimes for a living; is that blub conceit?

No, I would have quoted it the first time if it was. But if you want to repeat that again you will certainly sound conceited.

[seanmcdirmid]

OK, I have no idea what point you are trying to make then. Please forgive my ignorance on your social conventions.

[smosher]

The point was simply that what you wrote is how a very bad argument starts. I took care to point out I wasn't accusing you of that but you have reacted defensively anyway.

It's my fault for trying to engage an HN-er in a form of discourse other than debate.

[seanmcdirmid]

If its a meta comment, just say so directly. It is a bit difficult to decode these comments sometimes, especially when defending OOP.

[coldtea]

>reads a lot like the Blub conceit

Perhaps. But then again the "Blub conceit" is nothing that exists in real life as a proven fact of computer science.

It's just an argument expressed in an essay. Not some kind of formal logical error.

[smosher]

What's your point?

[coldtea]

My point, which is pretty obvious, is that it "reading like the Blub conceit" doesn't mean anything at all with regards to its correctness.

Might as well say "your argument reads a lot as something that an unbeliever in the flying spaghetti monster would say".

[colinkahn]

What is the blub conceit? Google searched it and got nothing.

[smosher]

The important bit is:

    As long as our hypothetical Blub programmer is looking down the power 
    continuum, he knows he's looking down. Languages less powerful than Blub 
    are obviously less powerful, because they're missing some feature he's used 
    to. But when our hypothetical Blub programmer looks in the other direction, 
    up the power continuum, he doesn't realize he's looking up. What he sees are 
    merely weird languages. He probably considers them about equivalent in power 
    to Blub, but with all this other hairy stuff thrown in as well. Blub is good 
    enough for him, because he thinks in Blub.

From PG's Beating the Averages (http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html)

[coldtea]

A "my language is more expressive than yours" version of the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis.