I don't think Larry's off his rocker.  In fact Andy's words say otherwise:

      "I thinks that's why so many people have
       trouble mastering OO concepts:
       because it's taught as a sort of an add-on
       to already entrenched procedural, ..."

OO is still not taught as the norm.  Thus beginner's will be surprised by
everythings-an-object, regardless of what Ruby has done.  The existence of
Ruby with 'OO everywhere' won't change this.

So Larry was correct.  That's not to say that the world needs to accede to
this pedagogy, but it is a positive thing to recognize reality, even if you
decide not to change.

Once the world comes to an agreement that everything should be an object
(and I'm not convinced we will), then it will eventually be taught that way.
Till then, beginners will continue to be surprised by Ruby.

My first professional language in 1985 was an object-oriented LISP.  I was
quite suprised by it.  I don't think things have changed that much since
then.  Except that OO is a more commonly taught additional technique.

Drew

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andrew Hunt [mailto:andy / toolshed.com]
>
> I think Larry's off his rocker on this one.  Consistency is far
> more important than familiarity.  IMHO, Larry is demonstrating a
> widely-held bias that objects are somehow "different" and should
> be segregated and not taught to beginners.
>
> I think that's a load of crap; exposing native types as non-objects
> in Java, for instance, is to me one the largest failings of that language.
>
> I thinks that's why so many people have trouble mastering OO concepts:
> because it's taught as a sort of an add-on to already entrenched
> procedural, linear thinking.  It's been my experience that you get
> better mileage is you start with objects right out of the gate -- which
> is exactly what Dave and I did in the pickaxe book.
>