4 ms·

Alan Kay’s Objects and Arts

5 points by samwillis 3y ago

jauntywundrkind 3y ago
> He goes on to disparage object orientation being taught as a way to encapsulate data structures. He sees methods not as actions, but as goals, something I haven’t wrapped my head around. His original insight for objects was that each should be thought of as a complete computer, and complex systems could be recursively subdivided into smaller and smaller machines exchanging messages. It’s interesting to hear this idea in today’s world of networked micro-services. There's a different thread here than my own, but I dig so much a disparagement of data-structure encapsulation. There's so many modern software-philosophies around good software encapsulating, around private membership ideas, where high fences/boundaries are what define good software. JavaScript getting private members was a pretty contested topic, for example, but big tent/every idea welcome philosophies opted to let the whole ecosystem be subject to clamp down. To be fair, there were already a lot of techniques available to encapuslate/hide one's state, but making encapsulation an easy to use & official capability radically changed the design of modern libraries, much for the worse. Things were just better when we left the door open to toying with behaviors intended to be internal, but which could still be places for enhancement: fear of the unknown cut off great possibility. So today it's the authors that get to set all boundaries, of what's internal & what's external, & no one else gets any say. I love how this post quietly celebrated a more open system. Where the data wasn't the star, but the capabilities & goals. I think this philosophy, of "the only true wisdom consists in knowing that you knowing" is what could best help software, best alter the equation where users are no longer always end-users, where open possibility allows users to amplify their own best interests actively.
Rochus 3y ago
> Yet here is Kay, who coined the term “object-oriented,” literally using the word composition to describe the key idea. Apparently not. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36879311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36879311.

5 points by samwillis 3y ago

> He goes on to disparage object orientation being taught as a way to encapsulate data structures. He sees methods not as actions, but as goals, something I haven’t wrapped my head around. His original insight for objects was that each should be thought of as a complete computer, and complex systems could be recursively subdivided into smaller and smaller machines exchanging messages. It’s interesting to hear this idea in today’s world of networked micro-services. There's a different thread here than my own, but I dig so much a disparagement of data-structure encapsulation. There's so many modern software-philosophies around good software encapsulating, around private membership ideas, where high fences/boundaries are what define good software. JavaScript getting private members was a pretty contested topic, for example, but big tent/every idea welcome philosophies opted to let the whole ecosystem be subject to clamp down. To be fair, there were already a lot of techniques available to encapuslate/hide one's state, but making encapsulation an easy to use & official capability radically changed the design of modern libraries, much for the worse. Things were just better when we left the door open to toying with behaviors intended to be internal, but which could still be places for enhancement: fear of the unknown cut off great possibility. So today it's the authors that get to set all boundaries, of what's internal & what's external, & no one else gets any say. I love how this post quietly celebrated a more open system. Where the data wasn't the star, but the capabilities & goals. I think this philosophy, of "the only true wisdom consists in knowing that you knowing" is what could best help software, best alter the equation where users are no longer always end-users, where open possibility allows users to amplify their own best interests actively.

Rochus 3y ago

> Yet here is Kay, who coined the term “object-oriented,” literally using the word composition to describe the key idea. Apparently not. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36879311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36879311.