4 ms·

A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages

163 points by donw 17y ago

milkshakes 17y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599164 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599164
- ableal 17y ago
  The small print says it was updated September 2010. (I know, it's April 9th. That date format/ordering just gets my goat.)
Vivtek 17y ago
It might be a duplicate, but I didn't see it last year and I'm happy you posted it - I laughed, I cried; it became a part of me.
baxter 17y ago
I've read this several times now, but I still laugh when I get to this sentence: "Lambdas are relegated to relative obscurity until Java makes them popular by not having them."
petercooper 17y ago
My intellectual curiosity has been gratified to the fullest extent.
lukeqsee 17y ago
Had me rolling. Great work. Somebody knows computer languages too well. :)
hristov 17y ago
That is pretty funny. Had me laughing out loud which pretty rare for nerd humour (which is usually cringe worthy). By the way for future editions there has to be a good joke about Haskell being lazy because it was created by a bunch of hippies.
billswift 17y ago
I thought I saw this just a few days ago, so I googled. This was posted here 6 days ago but got only five upvotes and one comment. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1310127 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1310127
- mhartl 17y ago
  This seems to happen a lot. Someone should do some A/B-style testing to figure out why. I nominate you. :-)
  - billswift 17y ago
    The obvious reason is here "HN is getting too big" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1329147 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1329147 many articles are disappearing off the new posts pages before many people get a chance to see them.
jobeirne 17y ago
"lambda the ultimate kitchen utensil"
Bjoern 17y ago
This made my day. :D Sorry this was too funny had to paste my favorite: 1983 - Bjarne Stroustrup bolts everything he's ever heard of onto C to create C++. The resulting language is so complex that programs must be sent to the future to be compiled by the Skynet artificial intelligence. Build times suffer. Skynet's motives for performing the service remain unclear but spokespeople from the future say "there is nothing to be concerned about, baby," in an Austrian accented monotones. There is some speculation that Skynet is nothing more than a pretentious buffer overrun.
tome 17y ago
I think we need Clojure in there.

163 points by donw 17y ago

milkshakes 17y ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599164 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599164

ableal 17y ago
The small print says it was updated September 2010. (I know, it's April 9th. That date format/ordering just gets my goat.)

Vivtek 17y ago

It might be a duplicate, but I didn't see it last year and I'm happy you posted it - I laughed, I cried; it became a part of me.

baxter 17y ago

I've read this several times now, but I still laugh when I get to this sentence: "Lambdas are relegated to relative obscurity until Java makes them popular by not having them."

petercooper 17y ago

My intellectual curiosity has been gratified to the fullest extent.

lukeqsee 17y ago

Had me rolling. Great work. Somebody knows computer languages too well. :)

hristov 17y ago

That is pretty funny. Had me laughing out loud which pretty rare for nerd humour (which is usually cringe worthy). By the way for future editions there has to be a good joke about Haskell being lazy because it was created by a bunch of hippies.

billswift 17y ago

I thought I saw this just a few days ago, so I googled. This was posted here 6 days ago but got only five upvotes and one comment. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1310127 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1310127

mhartl 17y ago
This seems to happen a lot. Someone should do some A/B-style testing to figure out why. I nominate you. :-)
- billswift 17y ago
  The obvious reason is here "HN is getting too big" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1329147 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1329147 many articles are disappearing off the new posts pages before many people get a chance to see them.

jobeirne 17y ago

"lambda the ultimate kitchen utensil"

Bjoern 17y ago

This made my day. :D Sorry this was too funny had to paste my favorite: 1983 - Bjarne Stroustrup bolts everything he's ever heard of onto C to create C++. The resulting language is so complex that programs must be sent to the future to be compiled by the Skynet artificial intelligence. Build times suffer. Skynet's motives for performing the service remain unclear but spokespeople from the future say "there is nothing to be concerned about, baby," in an Austrian accented monotones. There is some speculation that Skynet is nothing more than a pretentious buffer overrun.

tome 17y ago

I think we need Clojure in there.