Re: [Phpwebsite-developers] OO vs. Procedural Programing

[Todd O. <to...@da...>]

I believe that OOP is the natural next step for phpWebSite.  phpGroupWare,
ezPublish and PEAR are already there.  Since we have decided to use PEAR
whenever possible, we will be using objects anyway.  Why not do the whole
project this way?

Well, two observations.  One, from my experience OO projects take longer to
code than procedural ones--to a point, then OOP wins.  Since I see phpWS as
a major project and not just a hack, I believe the extra overhead (which I
consider small) is justified.  Otherwise, it may be hard to keep phpWS from
migrating back to phpNuke--a LARGE hack.  In the not-so-long-run, class
structures force good coding practices on the project and make it (in my
opinion) easier to go modular.

The second observation was the use of AppState students on the project.  I
don't know about the rest of you, but OOP wasn't on the computer science
radar screen when I was in college (1987-1991).  When Borland's Turbo C 1.0
was released in 1988, I was so relieved.  After reading Kernigan and
Ritchie, I never wrote in Fortran again, unless forced to by some of the
older Electrical Engineering professors.  My compile times dropped by a
factor of 20.  After reading a Borland C++ book in 1993, I was hooked on
OOP--It just made sense.  To make a long story short, I think today's
computer science students are so much sharper than when I went to college
that they can code in anything, anyone can throw at them.  I don't see OOP
as an obstacle to the students.  I see phpWS as an opportunity to
participate in a REAL, ongoing project that won't die at the end of a
semester.

Anyway, this is my case for an object oriented approach and I promise not to
harp any longer.  I continue to be excited about the PEOPLE assembling
themselves into the phpWS group.  We can make phpWS(II) whatever we think it
can be, considering the talent assembled.

Happy Easter,
--Todd