Everything is not an object

Jocelyn Ireson-Paine
Department of Experimental Psychology
Oxford University , and KB7
and
Petros S. Stefaneas
Section of Mathematics
National Technical University of Athens , and KB7

Research paper

Key words: Object oriented programming, Java, modularisation.

Everything is not an object

Abstract

The new programming language Java carries object-orientation to extremes, treating all user-defined types as objects. We argue that this causes problems with readability, which we illustrate with examples. Java could have avoided these problems if it had gonstructs for modules and for non-object data-types.

• Introduction
• The symptoms
  • Asymmetry
  • Equality
  • Misplaced methods
• The causes
  • The non-objecthood of mathematical entities
  • Indiscernables and Java
  • Misplaced methods, and modules
• The cure
• Conclusions
• References
• About this document ...