3 ms·

Tracing the etymology of the first journal-published use of object-oriented in the context of CS and adjacent fields: [1]: Page 67 in *Edwards, T. (1970). Libr

Tracing the etymology of the first journal-published use of object-oriented in the context of CS and adjacent fields: [1]: Page 67 in *Edwards, T. (1970). Library & Information Science Abstracts* mentions: "There are 2 retrieval systems: the first is ALBUM, an object-oriented retrieval system for the print-out of indices, names and subjects and their thematic relations." https://archive.org/details/sim_library-information-science-abstracts_march-april-1970_2/mode/2up?view=theater&wrapper=false https://archive.org/details/sim_library-information-science-... [2]: Page 140 in *Rustin, R. (1971). Computer Science Symposium Courant 6: Data base systems* mentions: "I feel that there is no inherent antagonism between the relational point of view and the object-oriented network viewpoint in database management." https://archive.org/details/databasesystems0000cour/mode/2up?view=theater&wrapper=false https://archive.org/details/databasesystems0000cour/mode/2up... [3]: Series 2 (1963-2001) and Series 3 (1972-2001) of the *Jon L. White collection on Common Lisp at the Computer History museum* contain records of early Lisp developments and object-oriented programming. https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/finding-aids/102733968-White/102733968-White.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/fi... [4]: Series 1 (1973-2010) of the *Adele Goldberg papers at the Computer History Museum* contains records related to early SmallTalk development and object-oriented programming. https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/finding-aids/102733960-Goldberg/102733960-Goldberg.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/fi... [5]: Page 4 of *Redell, D. (1974). Naming and Protection in Extended Operating Systems* mentions: "... we can regard the function of the operating system as being the transformation of the basic hardware resources of the computer into a universe of abstract resources or objects, and a set of operations for manipulating those objects. This point of view is often referred to as the object-oriented approach." https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA001721.pdf https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA001721.pdf [6]: A project report by *Eisner, T. (1975). SmallTalk-AT: An Object-Oriented Program development* contains ample mentions of OO. https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2023/03/102739344-05-02-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... [7]: Table 1 of *Goodenough, J. B. (1975). Structured Exception Handling* contains two mentions of OO. https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/512976.512997 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/512976.512997 [8]: Lastly, page 2 of *Capretz, L. F. (2003). A Brief History of the Object-Oriented Approach* mentions how the object-oriented paradigm amalgamated from some of the earlier references we discussed: "Despite the early innovation of Simula, the term object-oriented became prominent from Smalltalk." https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&context=electricalpub https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1047&conte... I would say the term floated around for a while before some of the explicit mentions above, especially if we include fields as philosophy, psychology and linguistics. I will report back if I come across earlier mentions.

Rochus 3y ago
Wow, what an effort, thank you very much. Ref [1] is not computer science, but demonstrates the early use of the term in yet another discipline. Ref [2] is definitely a hit; it's a text by Robert J. Bobrow about an experimental database system, published in 1972. Refs [3] and [4] are documents collected by White and Goldberg, as far as I understand, not really publications; Goldberg started to publish in 1977, White in 1982. Ref [5] is again a hit; it's a documented use of the term in a published MIT report from 1974 about operating systems. Ref [6] seems to have been published much later; if you look at the bibliography on page 19 there are references from 1987. Ref [7] is again a hit; it's a paper published at the POPL 1975 conference about structured exception handling. Ref [8] is an interesting paper, but from 2003 *** Interim conclusion: With reference [2] we have the earliest documented use of the term "object-oriented" in a CS publication; it's in a book about a symposium which happened in May 1971. The first ever Smalltalk was conceived in the same year. The first use of the term related to an object-oriented programming language seems to be in MIT CSG Memo 137 by Jones and Liskov in 1976, as found by a fellow on Reddit (see https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/156ng13/which_cs_publication_used_term_objectoriented_for/jt1e57u/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/156ng...).
- dleeftink 3y ago
  Not a problem, happy to help:) I've also been skimming some MIT and DARPA memos, barring explicit mentions. Re: [1] we can infer that earlier references may exist (seeing how they discuss an existing system), even though 'object-oriented' may have connoted something different at the time. Re: [5] similarly implies the term had been in use among CS-practitioners between '70 and '74. I also want to add that the '...-oriented' affix was frequently used in the 60's. For instance, 'task-oriented', 'problem-oriented', 'business-oriented', 'simulation-oriented'.[1][2] It stands to reason that 'object-oriented' would have been part of CS-parlance at the time, seeing how LISP and MACLISP implemented early 'objects'. [1] R. F. Clippinger (1962). COBOL, The Computer Journal, Volume 5, Issue 3, November 1962, Pages 177–180, https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/5.3.177 https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/5.3.177. [2]: Knuth, D. E., & McNeley, J. L. (1964). A formal definition of SOL. IEEE transactions on electronic computers, (4), 409-414: "Within a given process it is possible to have several actions going on at once; therefore, we may think of several objects on which the action takes place each in its own place in the process at any given time" (p. 409).

Rochus 3y ago

Wow, what an effort, thank you very much. Ref [1] is not computer science, but demonstrates the early use of the term in yet another discipline. Ref [2] is definitely a hit; it's a text by Robert J. Bobrow about an experimental database system, published in 1972. Refs [3] and [4] are documents collected by White and Goldberg, as far as I understand, not really publications; Goldberg started to publish in 1977, White in 1982. Ref [5] is again a hit; it's a documented use of the term in a published MIT report from 1974 about operating systems. Ref [6] seems to have been published much later; if you look at the bibliography on page 19 there are references from 1987. Ref [7] is again a hit; it's a paper published at the POPL 1975 conference about structured exception handling. Ref [8] is an interesting paper, but from 2003 *** Interim conclusion: With reference [2] we have the earliest documented use of the term "object-oriented" in a CS publication; it's in a book about a symposium which happened in May 1971. The first ever Smalltalk was conceived in the same year. The first use of the term related to an object-oriented programming language seems to be in MIT CSG Memo 137 by Jones and Liskov in 1976, as found by a fellow on Reddit (see https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/156ng13/which_cs_publication_used_term_objectoriented_for/jt1e57u/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ProgrammingLanguages/comments/156ng...).

dleeftink 3y ago
Not a problem, happy to help:) I've also been skimming some MIT and DARPA memos, barring explicit mentions. Re: [1] we can infer that earlier references may exist (seeing how they discuss an existing system), even though 'object-oriented' may have connoted something different at the time. Re: [5] similarly implies the term had been in use among CS-practitioners between '70 and '74. I also want to add that the '...-oriented' affix was frequently used in the 60's. For instance, 'task-oriented', 'problem-oriented', 'business-oriented', 'simulation-oriented'.[1][2] It stands to reason that 'object-oriented' would have been part of CS-parlance at the time, seeing how LISP and MACLISP implemented early 'objects'. [1] R. F. Clippinger (1962). COBOL, The Computer Journal, Volume 5, Issue 3, November 1962, Pages 177–180, https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/5.3.177 https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/5.3.177. [2]: Knuth, D. E., & McNeley, J. L. (1964). A formal definition of SOL. IEEE transactions on electronic computers, (4), 409-414: "Within a given process it is possible to have several actions going on at once; therefore, we may think of several objects on which the action takes place each in its own place in the process at any given time" (p. 409).