5 ms·

Well this stuff happened in '88: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/class-letter/class-letter.txt http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/class-let

Well this stuff happened in '88: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/class-letter/class-letter.txt http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/wadler/papers/class-letter/cla... --- they possibly didn't expect OOP and "classes" (Stroustrup '79) to become quite so very ubiquitous as they did in the 90s.

mpweiher 9y ago
Well, Smalltalk had been around for 16 years, Simula for over 20. The whole world of GUI programming was based on OO.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  The whole world of GUI programming consisted of a bunch of top of line labs and some research centers studying GUIs.
  - mpweiher 9y ago
    Huh? The Xerox Star was introduced in 1981 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star Apple's Lisa was introduced in 1983. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa With it, Lisa Toolkit and Clascal (Pascal with Classes) http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/lisa/toolkit_university/Clascal_Reference_Manual_Mar83.pdf http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/app... The Mac in 1984 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K MacApp in 1985 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacApp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacApp The Tektronix 4404 running Smalltalk, also 1984 http://www.wirfs-brock.com/allen/files/tek/4404-Flyer.pdf http://www.wirfs-brock.com/allen/files/tek/4404-Flyer.pdf The Amiga and Atari ST in 1985. Windows was at 2.0 in 1987. Heck, the NeXT cube had been introduced by fall of '88. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer
zzalpha 9y ago
You... don't really think Stroustrup invented the term "class", do you? :)
- dualogy 9y ago
  Of course not but that sort of meaning for the term class was GP's point here
  - zzalpha 9y ago
    And my point is that that usage of the term predates Stroustrup by 10 solid years. By the time Haskell was first released, OOP was either already available in popular languages (Smalltalk, Object Pascal) or being introduced into existing languages (Objective C, C++, Lisp). In hindsight it would appear there was no reason not to see that OOP was gaining in popularity, that the term "class" was already in use, and that overloading it would be confusing. That said, in the end, all my original post was lamenting is that it's a shame that Haskell terminology went the way it did... it's just yet another aspect of the language that creates confusion among newcomers, and it already has enough of that already! :)
    - iainmerrick 9y ago
      I don't think the creators of Haskell were concerned even slightly with trying to fit in with trends in imperative languages. They were doing their own thing (or at least, trying to make a research-friendly version of David Turner's commercial language Miranda).
      - zzalpha 9y ago
        Your explanation does not justify the choice. They were tasked with communicating with other academics who were already using the term "class" in the field of programming language research.
        mitchty 9y ago

mpweiher 9y ago

Well, Smalltalk had been around for 16 years, Simula for over 20. The whole world of GUI programming was based on OO.

marcosdumay 9y ago
The whole world of GUI programming consisted of a bunch of top of line labs and some research centers studying GUIs.
- mpweiher 9y ago
  Huh? The Xerox Star was introduced in 1981 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Star Apple's Lisa was introduced in 1983. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa With it, Lisa Toolkit and Clascal (Pascal with Classes) http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/lisa/toolkit_university/Clascal_Reference_Manual_Mar83.pdf http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/app... The Mac in 1984 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K MacApp in 1985 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacApp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacApp The Tektronix 4404 running Smalltalk, also 1984 http://www.wirfs-brock.com/allen/files/tek/4404-Flyer.pdf http://www.wirfs-brock.com/allen/files/tek/4404-Flyer.pdf The Amiga and Atari ST in 1985. Windows was at 2.0 in 1987. Heck, the NeXT cube had been introduced by fall of '88. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer

zzalpha 9y ago

You... don't really think Stroustrup invented the term "class", do you? :)

dualogy 9y ago
Of course not but that sort of meaning for the term class was GP's point here
- zzalpha 9y ago
  And my point is that that usage of the term predates Stroustrup by 10 solid years. By the time Haskell was first released, OOP was either already available in popular languages (Smalltalk, Object Pascal) or being introduced into existing languages (Objective C, C++, Lisp). In hindsight it would appear there was no reason not to see that OOP was gaining in popularity, that the term "class" was already in use, and that overloading it would be confusing. That said, in the end, all my original post was lamenting is that it's a shame that Haskell terminology went the way it did... it's just yet another aspect of the language that creates confusion among newcomers, and it already has enough of that already! :)
  - iainmerrick 9y ago
    I don't think the creators of Haskell were concerned even slightly with trying to fit in with trends in imperative languages. They were doing their own thing (or at least, trying to make a research-friendly version of David Turner's commercial language Miranda).
    - zzalpha 9y ago
      Your explanation does not justify the choice. They were tasked with communicating with other academics who were already using the term "class" in the field of programming language research.
      - mitchty 9y ago