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honey the codewitch wrote: In my mind, a class is a noun, not a verb, essentially
For me, a class may be either a noun or a verb.
As a noun, the concept represented by the class is a thing, and the class provides information and operations for that thing.
For a verb the concept is a process, and the class supports that process. I guess 'process' can be thought of as a noun, but thinking of it that way adds indirection to my thinking.
Software Zen: delete this;
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That's a good point. I was trying to get to the essence of it and simplify, but obviously I missed the mark in terms of covering every eventuality.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Keeping in mind of course that a school class is intended to teach concepts not practice.
So in general one can think of it as a noun but if someone insists that every single class must always follow some rule about that then it is going to be a problem.
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An engine on a stand doesn't need a gear box to "start" or "run". It needs fuel and / or a battery.
"Moving" is accomplished through the addition of a transmission, axels and wheels.
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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0x01AA wrote: Abstracting the reality is usually very hard.
Abstracting reality may be difficult but its absolutely essential. If you see a chair that you've never seen before and you don't have an abstract concept of what a chair is, how would you ever know its a chair?
It sounds like this professor had a difficult time with the abstract concept of a class. It can be a difficult concept but I would think it would be a prerequisite to being an IT professor.
But what do I know? I'm self taught and assume there a plenty of abstract concepts I'm just not aware of.
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That's the way I learned it also, of course I taught myself but every reference I came across explained it that way.
I don't think before I open my mouth, I like to be as surprised a everyone else.
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate
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It's complicated. 
CI/CD = Continuous Impediment/Continuous Despair
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honey the codewitch wrote: But I'm hearing that professors are teaching that classes are effectively a single action like ReadTextFile and it makes me a lot more irritated than I probably should be.
This could be the beginning of a in-depth discussion on Communication.
I have to parse the beginning of your sentence very closely and pull out "I'm hearing..." part.
You are hearing that from a beginning student, I believe.
Now, we can't be sure
1.if the Professors are actually teaching this (that a class is one action / functionality)
2. if it is the way the student is understanding it
Let's say it is the latter ( choice 2 above).
Now, that may simply mean that the Professor is teaching a concept poorly -- actually doesn't believe that a class is just one action but has somehow inadvertently used words that create a students understanding to be that.
From what I remember about Professors and coding, it seems likely that the Professor is actually teaching OOP wrong. Few colleges have Professors which actually program or have been on large teams which have implemented large systems using OOP.
However, I could also see that the student learning about OOP sees a simple example (because all University examples are far too simple (because anything large requires too much work on the Professor's part) and assumes that because there is only one functionality in the class along with a phrase the student has heard (Single Responsibility Principle) leads the student to believe that a class must have only one action.
So, here we are back at the beginning.
We don't know if:
1. The professor is wrong
2. the professor is confusing and the learning lands improperly
3. The student misunderstands on her own.
We're down at the bottom, writhing in the Communication pain. 
The best thing to do is: Redirect!!
And that seems to be what you are doing. Tell the student the proper use of Classes and why they can have more actions.
Good luck with Communication.
I'm sure that I too have added some form of communication problem while writing this up. 
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Maybe the student is wresting with "code blocks" or "delegates": methods as "objects" (of "anonymous" classes).
Or at least it would be fun to drop that on them. I was over the moon when I first discovered Clipper "code blocks" (DI before DI).
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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It was an assignment, I think photocopied out of a book but I didn't ask.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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honey the codewitch wrote: It was an assignment, I think photocopied out of a book
So, that means the Professor is just a willing purveyor of tripe who does not take the time to determine if the materials she uses have any value.
Also, it means that the Professor is not the root cause of the problem -- just the purveyor.
Which, in turn means... We need to get that book and destroy it.
I'd love to know the title of the book which has :
1. bamboozled the professor
2. is chosen by universities
3. is spreading lies about OOP
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Keep in mind, I don't know for sure. I saw a snapshot of a printed assignment, or maybe it was a book. Like I said, I didn't ask. Jschell did some googling and found that other people made a class with that name. I'm pretty sure the prof adapted the assignment somewhat for his class though, for reasons.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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honey the codewitch wrote: But I'm hearing that professors are teaching that classes are effectively a single action
Plural?
So someone claims that multiple different teachers are teaching that?
And what professors? Community college? Some night school community education classes? High school?
honey the codewitch wrote: Am I wrong here?
You are correct.
But there could be more to it.
For example the curriculum could be forced. Especially true for high school type education. They screw around all sorts of ways with teaching reading/math like that using experimental methods which never work.
Or just an incompetent teacher. Either not trying or just one that does not have the knowledge.
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Yeah plural, as I've seen before in other assignments in the past.
CS coursework, last one at a uni in south africa.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Perhaps the classes were really about teaching coding (mostly) and not about concepts?
True it shouldn't be that way but it does happen.
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I used to work with a guy who did so much refactoring that most of his functions came down to one-liners, and all of his classes were focused to an extreme, to the point of being responsible for a single action.
Looking at individual classes/functions one-by-one, his code became trivial to read, but the problem this introduced is that there were so many tiny single-purpose classes, the whole thing grew to have the opposite effect and became an unmanageable mess. He understood it very well. But the rest of the team spent way too much time jumping through endless class definitions, trying to find where the real work was being done.
I'm hoping those professors aren't following that model.
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In that case, if you make them all static, put them in related "class libraries", it becomes manageable; like "System.Math".
"Before entering on an understanding, I have meditated for a long time, and have foreseen what might happen. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly, secretly, what I have to say or to do in a circumstance unexpected by other people; it is reflection, it is meditation." - Napoleon I
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More than thirty years ago, when OO concepts made were first thought of, everyone jumped onto this, and started talking about OO, without really understanding it; much like The Emperor's New Clothes - Wikipedia Everyone could see the 'clothes' the Emperor was wearing, and talk about their grandeur, but the reality was different.
History is said to repeat itself, perhaps in the form of these OO professors of today.
modified 6-Nov-23 19:28pm.
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OOP? Hell, I'm pissed they never taught anything about debugging techniques or using a debugger!
It would make teaching the languages and code much easier if they could see exactly what's changing while the code is running.
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They also didn't teach building/making complex software systems.
We learned on OpenVMS and the debugger is nigh on unusable so it's no surprise they didn't teach it. Learning how to debug without a debugger is much more important anyway.
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I wish they would have taught just the basic technique of outputting suspect variables to the console, but when I was going, they didn't teach even that.
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The prof is teaching “microServices”
I remember seeing a text book purporting to teach OO with C++. I seriously think that a professor took an Introduction to Programming with classic BASIC and converted it paragraph by paragraph to C++. It was horrendous!
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When I was learning C++, most college professors knew a bit of C and taught C as C++. I see things have not improved
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honey the codewitch wrote: Am I wrong here?
No, not at all. A class, in the various languages that contemplate it as a construct, is one of several possible forms of implementing an ADT (Abstract Data Type). Generally data + code, plus some other "automation" to implement inheritance and, consequently, dynamic polymorphism, at least in languages like C++. An ADT is also an opaque structure (like FILE in the C library) in addition to the free functions that operate on it: it does not matter what the "guts/bowels" (hidden part) of a class or structure look like, what matters is the interface with which it allows you to operate, i.e., the functions that accept an explicit or implicit "this".
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