12 ms·

A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages (2009)

197 points by radicality 10y ago

jiyinyiyong 10y ago
Every time I read it, it's as interesting as the first time!
stevetrewick 10y ago
2009, but always well worth a re-read, and if it's your first time, congrats on being one of today's lucky 10,000 [0] [0] https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
- DogPawHat 10y ago
  Why thank you
- elcapitan 10y ago
  Oh I definitely am one of the lucky 10k.
- TheLarch 10y ago
  Unsure why Diet Coke is always specified. My son and his friends tried grape soda. Inside. It worked just fine.
  - zck 10y ago
    I've heard (but not tried) that Diet Coke is used because not having sugar, it's less sticky when it dries.
DyslexicAtheist 10y ago
oh yes James Iry :) must be this time of year again: https://thequickword.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/james-irys-history-of-programming-languages-illustrated-with-pictures-and-large-fonts/ https://thequickword.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/james-irys-his...
venomsnake 10y ago
It needs more additions. After all the only way Haskell could be conceived is after a very long LSD (needed to grok monads) fueled BSDM (the type system) session. Edit: Missed Haskell in the article. But I guess you could say the upper for different reasons about angular, enterprise software and spring. Or anything that transpires to JS, due to the build chain and difficulty debugging.
tambourine_man 10y ago
Curious to read Rust and Swift entries.
ar7hur 10y ago
"Lambdas are relegated to relative obscurity until Java makes them popular by not having them." hahaha
bpyne 10y ago
Still love "Dennis Ritchie invents a powerful gun that shoots both forward and backward simultaneously. Not satisfied with the number of deaths and permanent maimings from that invention he invents C....." (On another note, James seems to have written a post back in March of this year. It's been such a long time since he wrote anything I wondered if he ever would again.) Now back to writing an application in PL/SQL....
hexane360 10y ago
>It is a syntax error to write FORTRAN while not wearing a blue tie. Or to not be polite to the compiler. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL
TheLarch 10y ago
"Bjarne Stroustrup bolts everything he's ever heard of onto C to create C++" was validating. A friend who has worked on desktop software in C for 30 years has it figured out IMO: he uses the C++ compiler, but always defines no-op constructors. Instead he defines an init() method on each class, which he calls explicitly. Essentially his only use for the C++ compiler is to sort out inheritance and build a correct function dispatch table.
- eropple 10y ago
  This gives up the significant benefits of RAII, which are made significantly safer and more useful through the use of references and std::unique_ptr. By using initialization methods rather than constructor methods, you create a situation where your destructors don't necessarily make sense and can't be relied on to be dealing with initialized objects (thus increasing the amount of boilerplate code that can fail) or you don't use destructors at all (at which point you regress to the "boy, I hope I scope-guarded correctly and cleaned up along every path of execution!" state of C). Writing C++ without using C++'s idioms is usually, if not almost always, creating more technical and business risk for the writer and the consumer than using C++'s idioms in the first place. (That some of these idioms are conceptually very difficult is a very valid criticism of C++, and one that Rust in particular seems well-positioned to be better about, but I'd take the bear traps of C++ over the land mines of C almost any day.)
snaky 10y ago
APL never mentioned.
georgewsinger 10y ago
This article is the origin of the infamous joke about Haskell: > Haskell gets some resistance due to the complexity of using monads to control side effects. Wadler tries to appease critics by explaining that "a monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors, what's the problem?"
- radicality 10y ago
  Hehe, that's actually how I ended up on this article, trying to understand what is meant by that statement in more detail. I found that apparently the original is from here [0]. :) [0] https://books.google.com/books?id=gfI-BAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA138&dq=All%20told%2C%20a%20monad%20in%20X%20is%20just%20a%20monoid&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q=All%20told,%20a%20monad%20in%20X%20is%20just%20a%20monoid&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=gfI-BAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA138&dq=...
acheron 10y ago
I can tell it's been a few years since I've read this, because: His goal is to create a language with the intelligence of a two year old. He proves he has reached his goal by showing a Prolog session that says "No." to every query. is both more and less funny than it used to be now that I have a two year old.
eximius 10y ago
Hmmm, I wonder what would be said about Nim, Rust, Racket, Go.... I'm drawing a blank, but those are some recent ones that come to mind.
VeejayRampay 10y ago
Absolutely hilarious mix of trolling and absurd by someone that obviously knows what he's talking about. Well played.
gnahckire 10y ago
>1964 - John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz create BASIC, an unstructured programming language for non-computer scientists. >1965 - Kemeny and Kurtz go to 1964. Brilliant
kazinator 10y ago
Regarding "recursion and condescension", that's just an unfortunate back-formation from a misunderstood pun. In a lecture once upon a time, some famous Lisp hacker joked that, if you will, to recurse over tree structure is to "cons descend". A blue-tied Fortran programmer from IBM in the audience didn't get the joke, and walked away with the idea that Lisp programmers are arrogant jerks who even program via condescension.
dang 10y ago
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=A%20Brief,%20Incomplete,%20and%20Mostly%20Wrong%20History%20of%20Programming%20Languages&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=A%20Brief,%20Incomplete,%20and...
HoopleHead 10y ago
I've probably read unfunnier articles in my time. But I'm having a hard time remembering when

197 points by radicality 10y ago

Every time I read it, it's as interesting as the first time!

2009, but always well worth a re-read, and if it's your first time, congrats on being one of today's lucky 10,000 [0] [0] https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/

DogPawHat 10y ago
Why thank you
elcapitan 10y ago
Oh I definitely am one of the lucky 10k.
TheLarch 10y ago
Unsure why Diet Coke is always specified. My son and his friends tried grape soda. Inside. It worked just fine.
- zck 10y ago
  I've heard (but not tried) that Diet Coke is used because not having sugar, it's less sticky when it dries.

DyslexicAtheist 10y ago

oh yes James Iry :) must be this time of year again: https://thequickword.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/james-irys-history-of-programming-languages-illustrated-with-pictures-and-large-fonts/ https://thequickword.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/james-irys-his...

venomsnake 10y ago

It needs more additions. After all the only way Haskell could be conceived is after a very long LSD (needed to grok monads) fueled BSDM (the type system) session. Edit: Missed Haskell in the article. But I guess you could say the upper for different reasons about angular, enterprise software and spring. Or anything that transpires to JS, due to the build chain and difficulty debugging.

tambourine_man 10y ago

Curious to read Rust and Swift entries.

ar7hur 10y ago

"Lambdas are relegated to relative obscurity until Java makes them popular by not having them." hahaha

bpyne 10y ago

Still love "Dennis Ritchie invents a powerful gun that shoots both forward and backward simultaneously. Not satisfied with the number of deaths and permanent maimings from that invention he invents C....." (On another note, James seems to have written a post back in March of this year. It's been such a long time since he wrote anything I wondered if he ever would again.) Now back to writing an application in PL/SQL....

hexane360 10y ago

>It is a syntax error to write FORTRAN while not wearing a blue tie. Or to not be polite to the compiler. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERCAL

TheLarch 10y ago

"Bjarne Stroustrup bolts everything he's ever heard of onto C to create C++" was validating. A friend who has worked on desktop software in C for 30 years has it figured out IMO: he uses the C++ compiler, but always defines no-op constructors. Instead he defines an init() method on each class, which he calls explicitly. Essentially his only use for the C++ compiler is to sort out inheritance and build a correct function dispatch table.

eropple 10y ago
This gives up the significant benefits of RAII, which are made significantly safer and more useful through the use of references and std::unique_ptr. By using initialization methods rather than constructor methods, you create a situation where your destructors don't necessarily make sense and can't be relied on to be dealing with initialized objects (thus increasing the amount of boilerplate code that can fail) or you don't use destructors at all (at which point you regress to the "boy, I hope I scope-guarded correctly and cleaned up along every path of execution!" state of C). Writing C++ without using C++'s idioms is usually, if not almost always, creating more technical and business risk for the writer and the consumer than using C++'s idioms in the first place. (That some of these idioms are conceptually very difficult is a very valid criticism of C++, and one that Rust in particular seems well-positioned to be better about, but I'd take the bear traps of C++ over the land mines of C almost any day.)

snaky 10y ago

APL never mentioned.

georgewsinger 10y ago

This article is the origin of the infamous joke about Haskell: > Haskell gets some resistance due to the complexity of using monads to control side effects. Wadler tries to appease critics by explaining that "a monad is a monoid in the category of endofunctors, what's the problem?"

radicality 10y ago
Hehe, that's actually how I ended up on this article, trying to understand what is meant by that statement in more detail. I found that apparently the original is from here [0]. :) [0] https://books.google.com/books?id=gfI-BAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA138&dq=All%20told%2C%20a%20monad%20in%20X%20is%20just%20a%20monoid&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q=All%20told,%20a%20monad%20in%20X%20is%20just%20a%20monoid&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=gfI-BAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA138&dq=...

acheron 10y ago

I can tell it's been a few years since I've read this, because: His goal is to create a language with the intelligence of a two year old. He proves he has reached his goal by showing a Prolog session that says "No." to every query. is both more and less funny than it used to be now that I have a two year old.

eximius 10y ago

Hmmm, I wonder what would be said about Nim, Rust, Racket, Go.... I'm drawing a blank, but those are some recent ones that come to mind.

VeejayRampay 10y ago

Absolutely hilarious mix of trolling and absurd by someone that obviously knows what he's talking about. Well played.

gnahckire 10y ago

>1964 - John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz create BASIC, an unstructured programming language for non-computer scientists. >1965 - Kemeny and Kurtz go to 1964. Brilliant

kazinator 10y ago

Regarding "recursion and condescension", that's just an unfortunate back-formation from a misunderstood pun. In a lecture once upon a time, some famous Lisp hacker joked that, if you will, to recurse over tree structure is to "cons descend". A blue-tied Fortran programmer from IBM in the audience didn't get the joke, and walked away with the idea that Lisp programmers are arrogant jerks who even program via condescension.

dang 10y ago

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=A%20Brief,%20Incomplete,%20and%20Mostly%20Wrong%20History%20of%20Programming%20Languages&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=A%20Brief,%20Incomplete,%20and...

HoopleHead 10y ago

I've probably read unfunnier articles in my time. But I'm having a hard time remembering when