Object-Oriented Programming is The Biggest Mistake of Computer Science
C++ and Java probably are some of the worst mistakes of computer science. Both have been heavily criticized by Alan Kay, the creator of OOP himself, and many other prominent computer scientists. Yet C++ and Java paved the way for the most notorious programming paradigm — the modern OOP.
Its popularity is very unfortunate, it has caused tremendous damage to the modern economy, causing indirect losses of trillions upon trillions of dollars. Thousands of human lives have been lost as a result of OOP. There’s no industry that went untouched by the latent OO crisis, unfolding right before our eyes for the past three decades.
Why is OOP so dangerous? Let’s find out.
Imagine taking your family out for a ride on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. It is nice and sunny outside. All of you enter the car, and you take the exact same highway that you’ve already driven on a million times.
Yet this time something is different — the car keeps accelerating uncontrollably, even when you release the gas pedal. Brakes aren’t working either, it seems they’ve lost their power. In a desperate attempt to save the situation, you pull the emergency brake. This leaves a 150-feet long skid mark on the road before your car runs into an embankment on the side of the road.
Sounds like a nightmare? Yet this is exactly what has happened to Jean Bookout in September, 2007 while she was driving her Toyota Camry. This wasn’t the only such incident. It was one of the many incidents related to the so-called “unintended acceleration”, which has plagued Toyota cars for well over a decade, causing close to 100 deaths. The car manufacturer was quick to point fingers at things like “sticky pedals”, driver error, and even floor mats. Yet some experts have long suspected that faulty software might have been at play.
To help with the problem, software experts from NASA have been enlisted, to find nothing. Only a few years later, during the investigation of the Bookout incident, the real culprit was found by another team of software experts. They’ve spent nearly…
