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“I invented the term ‘object-oriented’, and I can tell you C++ wasn't what I had in mind.” ~ Alan Kay, OOPSLA ‘97
by nemoniac 3y ago
“I invented the term ‘object-oriented’, and I can tell you C++ wasn't what I had in mind.” ~ Alan Kay, OOPSLA ‘97
- vendiddy 3y agoI believe Erlang/Elixir are closer to what he had in mind. (Processes with encapsulated state passing messages to each other.)
- freetonik 3y agoAnd also Smalltalk, I believe. It appeared ~15 years earlier than Erlang. The idea of holding encapsulated state and receiving messages is its core concept, AFAIK.
- kragen 3y agoguess who headed the smalltalk team and what team he was working on when he invented the term 'object-oriented'
- frou_dh 3y agoIt does make a lot more sense if messaging is asynchronous, because the metaphor breaks down immediately if sending any message requires the sender to freeze until a reply comes back.
- lucidguppy 3y agoI don't think anyone would "want" CPP. It feels like it's multiple layers of "this is how we've always done it" interleaved with some really good ideas (STL).
- kaba0 3y agoJust because someone coined the term, doesn't mean that they get to define it. The industry absolutely doesn't use OOP in any way similar to what Alan Kay does, and the former is the de facto correct usage.
- cmrdporcupine 3y agoIt's also worth pointing out that as smart and important of a guy as he is, Alan Kay has not been employed as a software developer for a very long time. What OO has become in the industry is a product of practical concerns encountered by people working in the field. Can't say I like it much, but working in this industry for 25ish years, I can understand the pragmatic "whys" of every step of language and tool design fairly well.