5 ms·

That's largely because Smalltalk was designed to actually be an OS. That didn't quite pan out.

by lucian1900 11y ago

david927 11y ago
It didn't pan out -- but it was the right idea. The "final language" that we will all eventually use will be an abstraction that is both language and OS.
- WalterGR 11y ago
  And it will be a Lisp. :)
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - david927 11y ago
    No! Lisp reduces the problem to a solvable one. Instead, we need to expand the solution to encompass the problem.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    "Next year, in the AI Lab."
- frou_dh 11y ago
  Urbit? Designed in Mars. Assembled in Earth.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    For plutonians.
- slfnflctd 11y ago
  > The "final language" Ugh, I've been holding out hope for this since I first learned there was more than BASIC when I was a kid. Instead, things got more fragmented. How many millions of hours have been wasted learning languages, frameworks or protocols which weren't used nearly as much as they were expected to be and ended up dying out? Think of how much better software could be if those hours had been spent learning things that continued to be useful. It honestly sometimes almost makes me wish I lived in a long-ago world where we could earn a living making things out of wood with the same simple hand tools our fathers did-- tools that stayed useful, and rarely changed. Does anyone think this "final language" thing is realistic at all? I've given up on seeing anything like it before I hit retirement age.
  - david927 11y ago
    Does anyone think this "final language" thing is realistic at all? I do. Remember, there were hundreds of search engines, and it looked like it would forever be that way, until Google came along. It's chaos until suddenly it's not anymore. The thing is, it's a definitely a 'hard problem', so we could normally forgive ourselves for not having solved it yet. Sadly, I'm not sure we're trying.
    - JadeNB 11y ago
      > Remember, there were hundreds of search engines, and it looked like it would forever be that way, until Google came along. On the other hand, remember that Google used to be the best search engine, which was why it became the One True search engine; but now it's not so clear that it's the best for all purposes. I use DDG, for example. (I'm not sure if this has any relevance to the analogy with the final language, except perhaps that any such language would work great until someone, or perhaps Sapir and Whorf, said "having everyone write in the same language is creating a monoculture. Imagine if we could tailor the language to the problem!")
- tempodox 11y ago
  > The "final language" I wish! But there are multiple sensible ways to approach a problem solution and just too many different tastes. There are good reasons for implementing different computation models, even if you made only one PL for each.
  - david927 11y ago
    But we have only one mathematical notation.
    - mmagin 11y ago
      Even that isn't true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notation_for_differentiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notation_for_differentiation But even so, programming in significantly different programming languages isn't just a difference as simple as that. Just look at control flow. Some languages you're expressing an explicit list of steps, others you're merely writing an expression that it's free to evaluate however it wants according to certain rules.

That's largely because Smalltalk was designed to actually be an OS. That didn't quite pan out.

It didn't pan out -- but it was the right idea. The "final language" that we will all eventually use will be an abstraction that is both language and OS.

WalterGR 11y ago
And it will be a Lisp. :)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- david927 11y ago
  No! Lisp reduces the problem to a solvable one. Instead, we need to expand the solution to encompass the problem.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  "Next year, in the AI Lab."
frou_dh 11y ago
Urbit? Designed in Mars. Assembled in Earth.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  For plutonians.
slfnflctd 11y ago
> The "final language" Ugh, I've been holding out hope for this since I first learned there was more than BASIC when I was a kid. Instead, things got more fragmented. How many millions of hours have been wasted learning languages, frameworks or protocols which weren't used nearly as much as they were expected to be and ended up dying out? Think of how much better software could be if those hours had been spent learning things that continued to be useful. It honestly sometimes almost makes me wish I lived in a long-ago world where we could earn a living making things out of wood with the same simple hand tools our fathers did-- tools that stayed useful, and rarely changed. Does anyone think this "final language" thing is realistic at all? I've given up on seeing anything like it before I hit retirement age.
- david927 11y ago
  Does anyone think this "final language" thing is realistic at all? I do. Remember, there were hundreds of search engines, and it looked like it would forever be that way, until Google came along. It's chaos until suddenly it's not anymore. The thing is, it's a definitely a 'hard problem', so we could normally forgive ourselves for not having solved it yet. Sadly, I'm not sure we're trying.
  - JadeNB 11y ago
    > Remember, there were hundreds of search engines, and it looked like it would forever be that way, until Google came along. On the other hand, remember that Google used to be the best search engine, which was why it became the One True search engine; but now it's not so clear that it's the best for all purposes. I use DDG, for example. (I'm not sure if this has any relevance to the analogy with the final language, except perhaps that any such language would work great until someone, or perhaps Sapir and Whorf, said "having everyone write in the same language is creating a monoculture. Imagine if we could tailor the language to the problem!")
tempodox 11y ago
> The "final language" I wish! But there are multiple sensible ways to approach a problem solution and just too many different tastes. There are good reasons for implementing different computation models, even if you made only one PL for each.
- david927 11y ago
  But we have only one mathematical notation.
  - mmagin 11y ago
    Even that isn't true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notation_for_differentiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notation_for_differentiation But even so, programming in significantly different programming languages isn't just a difference as simple as that. Just look at control flow. Some languages you're expressing an explicit list of steps, others you're merely writing an expression that it's free to evaluate however it wants according to certain rules.