Object-Oriented Programming is Bad

Why HN readers recommended it

HN returns to it as the go-to critique of OOP, recommended for explaining the costs of abstraction better than most written arguments.

This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.

Video & recommendation details

Creator / channel

Brian Will

Topic

critique of object-oriented programming

Format

commentary

Level

intermediate

HN recommenders in dataset

13

HN mentions in dataset

20

Recommendation years in dataset

2016–2025

These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.

From the original HN conversations

Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.

• Code should be written first and foremost for humans to understand, and incidentally for compilers to understand. [LINK] If we can all agree about that then we have to ask ourselves if encapsulating data and behavior at the granularity of classes makes the most sense …

• Looking at your top priority books I recalled a slide from one of Brian Will's videos on object oriented programming: "Object Oriented Programming is Bad" [VIDEO] . At around the 43:51 he pulls up a slide picturing several of these (and similar) books. Here is …

• Previous videos Object-Oriented Programming is Bad [VIDEO] Object-Oriented Programming is Embarrassing: 4 Short Examples [LINK] I'm watching the 'is Bad' one, and honestly, it rings too close to my experience. Need to think about this a bit more deeply!