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A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Programming Languages
- ThomPete 15y agoIf you haven't already I would really recommend you to read the book: The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood http://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/0375423729 http://www.amazon.com/Information-History-Theory-Flood/dp/03... Great detailed historical perspective and lots of aha moments.
- davidw 15y agoWhat in particular about it did you like? Does it have stuff that's not 'generally known' amongst the hacker set?
- dsr_ 15y agoIf you're the sort of person who has read the Jargon File, understands algorithmic complexity, and finds beauty in Hofstadter, you probably know everything in Gleick's book. I kept waiting for a punchline, but there wasn't one.
- ThomPete 15y agoThat's true. I still do think there was some good historical info that I at least wasn't aware of.
- f4stjack 15y ago"1996 - James Gosling invents Java. Java is a relatively verbose, garbage collected, class based, statically typed, single dispatch, object oriented language with single implementation inheritance and multiple interface inheritance. Sun loudly heralds Java's novelty. 2001 - Anders Hejlsberg invents C#. C# is a relatively verbose, garbage collected, class based, statically typed, single dispatch, object oriented language with single implementation inheritance and multiple interface inheritance. Microsoft loudly heralds C#'s novelty." Hands down epic definition win.
- DanielRibeiro 15y agoNice one. I really liked this one though: 1958 - John McCarthy and Paul Graham invent LISP. Due to high costs caused by a post-war depletion of the strategic parentheses reserve LISP never becomes popular[1]. In spite of its lack of popularity, LISP (now "Lisp" or sometimes "Arc") remains an influential language in "key algorithmic techniques such as recursion and condescension"[2]. [1] Fortunately for computer science the supply of curly braces and angle brackets remains high. [2] Catch as catch can - Verity Stob: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/11/exception_handling/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/11/exception_handling/
- LearnYouALisp 15y agoThe wonderful thing about Lisp though is that you can write a macro to produce more parentheses! However, to do this you have to be able to write a macro.
- SatvikBeri 15y agoYou know what they say...it takes parentheses to make parentheses.
- perfunctory 15y agoMy favourite is actually: 1972 - 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 and Unix.
- warfangle 15y agoThis was actually a remix[1] and nod to the legendary guide, "Shooting yourself in the foot in various programming languages,"[2] which has slowly evolved over the course of usenet, gopher, and websockets. I'm convinced that this list will one day be fed recursively into a prolog console and become skynet. 1. http://blip.tv/goodiebag/everything-is-a-remix-part-1-4136010 http://blip.tv/goodiebag/everything-is-a-remix-part-1-413601... 2. http://www.toodarkpark.org/computers/humor/shoot-self-in-foot.html http://www.toodarkpark.org/computers/humor/shoot-self-in-foo...
- bitops 15y agoOnly two minor quibbles: 1) did not mention Clojure. 2) broke the amusing narrative a bit in the middle by including a true story (Perl). Really funny otherwise.
- chalst 15y agoWe've had this story here several times before, most notably: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599164 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599164 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1327746 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1327746
- boneheadmed 15y agoSyntax error (you forgot the GOTO :)
- boneheadmed 15y agoOuch, down-voted. Who said programmers have no sense of humor? Well how about this way: "Mental pleasure are never cloy; unlike those of the body, they are increased by repetition, approved by reflection, and strengthened by enjoyment." - Nathaniel Cotton
- boneheadmed 15y agoOk, a third time for the literalists, but I think it is my last attempt. Nothing spoils a news.ycombinator.com comment party like the scolding professor who comments: "We've had this story posted a number of times here. One ruler to the hand for each iteration." Particularly with something so comical. This blog post should be re-posted at least monthly. And for the humor-impaired weekly. No do as you will with me cruel world. You can take away my karma and even my upvote, but you can't take away my dignity. (On the other hand, if the down votes were for recommending GOTO instead of GOSUB, then this is completely understandable.)
- chalst 15y agoIt was a good joke and there were some nice comments. If you want to relive the comment thread again and again, the web is full of places where the joke would still be fresh. HN would be just a little bit better without these "lets do the comment party again" threads.
- skrebbel 15y agoI hate the factual inaccuracies in this post. For example, it says that Rasmus Lerdorf got the idea for PHP at a neighbourhood Italian restaurant, but Qeqertarsuaq has no Italian restaurants.
- bad_user 15y agoYeah, it also says that Larry Wall came up with Perl by falling asleep and hitting his head on the keyboard, when in fact Perl was created through a genetic algorithm -- that's why it takes so long for Perl 6 to happen, because those specs they call Synopses keep changing and therefore the fitness metric is not stable.
- Jun8 15y ago:-) I think some will miss the funny bit about him being the prophet, etc.: Larry Wall is very religious, e.g. that's why it's called "bless".
- vvnraman 15y agoThis has to be the best line - It is a syntax error to write FORTRAN while not wearing a blue tie.
- tintin 15y ago"1965 - Kemeny and Kurtz go to 1964." gave me a big smile...
- edanm 15y agoI didn't get that one, actually. Am I just being dumb or is there a backstory?
- daniel_iversen 15y agoLOVE it! :) :)
- mafro 15y agoAbsolutely brilliant. As a relative HN newbie, this really should posted about once a year. "Later still, in an effort to cash in on the popularity of skin diseases the language is renamed ECMAScript."
- cs702 15y agoI'd go further: why not have a "Wall of Fame" section on HN to which we can nominate submissions that deserve a permanent link somewhere? UPDATE: I've submitted this comment as a question here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3505201 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3505201
- johnx123-up 15y ago2003 - A drunken Martin Odersky sees a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup ad featuring somebody's peanut butter getting on somebody else's chocolate and has an idea. He creates Scala, a language that unifies constructs from both object oriented and functional languages. This pisses off both groups and each promptly declares jihad. Nice take:-)
- antirez 15y agoa rare instance of programming humor that is actually fun
- aussiegirl 15y agoThe oldest use of programming was in ancient times. They even had automated plays that were "programmed" with ropes and spindles. Sadly, the records of much of which were probably lost with the library of alexandria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_of_Alexandria
- laconian 15y agoI wouldn't mind an entry about the metastasis of Javascript beyond the confines of the browser. The awfulness of JS refuses to go away!
- v33ra 15y ago//Programmable Hyperlinked Pasta (PHP)// No wonder it is being served by a 'server'! :)