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According to a message he posted[0] on the erlang-questions mailing list, since 1967 he has written in Fortran, Lisp, Prolog, Smalltalk, Erlang, C, C++, Java, P

According to a message he posted[0] on the erlang-questions mailing list, since 1967 he has written in Fortran, Lisp, Prolog, Smalltalk, Erlang, C, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, Lua, Javascript, Haskell, ML and OCaml. I italicised all the object-oriented ones. Saying that Joe Armstrong doesn't have "extensive OO experience" is pretty comical! [0] http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2013-January/071949.html http://erlang.org/pipermail/erlang-questions/2013-January/07...

Uchikoma 14y ago
Extensive experience? About Java: "I tried Java" About C++: "I saw C++ coming and read the book - or at least tried to read the book - there's a dent in the wall behind my piano, where the book hit the wall" About Smalltalk: "I learnt (with various degrees of proficiency) [...] smalltalk [...] and became proficient in Prolog (aggghhh - the beauty ....)" About the others: " I also (later) tried Python (ok), Ruby (ok)". We might vary in our perception, but I would not call this extensive experience, "trying" some languages and "trying" to read a book. I would call "I've written some systems in Java for 10 years" extensive Java experience.
- loxs 14y ago
  So you are saying that you are a better language expert, and know better than him?
  - coldtea 14y ago
    Why can't he say that? Several people in HN should know more about OO than Armstrong. There are academics that have taught and worked for decades on OO systems and concepts among the crowd, unlike Joe. In general, popular language creators are hardly the more knowledgable of the various PL concepts and issues. Simon Peyton Jones probably knows hundred times more about such stuff than Matz or Guido do, for example.
    - dbecker 14y ago
      It's worth pointing out that the original comment claimed Armstrong had no OO experience... not simply that Armstrong wasn't the most knowledgable OO programmer on HN.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- beagle3 14y ago
  He's humble. If you read what he wrote (not just this quote), it is clear that he has a better grasp of OO than most OO practitioners and language designers. And especially since OO is not well defined (see pg's quote of Jon Rees' characterization), most OO people can, and often do, claim everyone who uses a different OO definition than they do has no experience.
- aidos 14y ago
  The quote posted in the initial comment really has no relevance to Armin's article so it's fair enough to call it out in this context. To attack the quote itself by simply assuming the author is inexperienced in OO just silly. Particularly so, given that Joe Armstrong has a grasp of computer languages that most of us could only ever dream of.
  - stonemetal 14y ago
    To attack the quote itself by simply assuming the author is inexperienced in OO just silly. No one is assuming anything about his OO skills, they are reading the words written and assuming the author isn't lying.
    - aidos 14y ago
      Erm, really? Love it when people write about OO without OO experience.
      - Uchikoma 14y ago
        I stand to this quote, Joe Armstrong has no documented OO experience (OO development for some years, development of an OO language etc.) and is quoted as an expert on the topic of classes. None of the people who have voted down all my comments have shown any experience in OO/classes development of Joe Armstrong. Joe Armstrong admitted to bash OO in a blog post ("silly" see quote above) to stir up people. [Edit] It's the same when people quote Linus on GUIs. He might be an excellent kernel hacker, with a great understanding of large scale open source development, but his opinion on GUI is as good as everyone else. Or how people quote Wozniak on everything. This is not science but a guru cult. I'm proposing that we move our industry to facts and experiments and end the pop culture and guru cults. I'm not with Raganwald that we should embrace this pop culture. This is the reason that I vehemently disagree when people cite Joe Armstrong as an expert on classes or when Joe Armstrong tries to stir up people my bashing OO.
- dbecker 14y ago
  Designing Erlang is an impressive accomplishment as computing goes. I don't know why you insist Armstrong is a dilettante without any basis.
  - Uchikoma 14y ago
    (as a side note, your argument does not make logical sense. Designing A does not make me an expert in B.) I do not "insist" that he is a "dilettante", I question people on this thread quoting him as an expert on OO as there without showing that he is an expert on OO. Beside I give circumstantial evidence why he isn't ("Tried Java ...", "Threw C++ book at the wall ..."). I think it's important to differentiate strong opinion from expert. And there are more indications: His understanding of "isolation" in the quoted text above is very influenced by him being the Erlang creator and the way Erlang thinks of isolation (processes). None of the (C++/Java/Ruby) OO programmers I know would use "isolation" in an OO context that sense (one error crashing other programs in the same VM).
tikhonj 14y ago
OCaml, as the name ("Objective Caml") implies, also supports object-oriented programming. It actually has a pretty clever implementation of it as well. That said, many people tend to stick to the functional bits of OCaml and don't venture out into the OOP bits very often.
- crntaylor 14y ago
  I thought about italicising OCaml as well, but I'd hesitate to call it an object-oriented language. It's more like a functional language that happens to have an object system. Likewise Common Lisp has an object system (CLOS) but I wouldn't call it an object-oriented language.

Uchikoma 14y ago

Extensive experience? About Java: "I tried Java" About C++: "I saw C++ coming and read the book - or at least tried to read the book - there's a dent in the wall behind my piano, where the book hit the wall" About Smalltalk: "I learnt (with various degrees of proficiency) [...] smalltalk [...] and became proficient in Prolog (aggghhh - the beauty ....)" About the others: " I also (later) tried Python (ok), Ruby (ok)". We might vary in our perception, but I would not call this extensive experience, "trying" some languages and "trying" to read a book. I would call "I've written some systems in Java for 10 years" extensive Java experience.

loxs 14y ago
So you are saying that you are a better language expert, and know better than him?
- coldtea 14y ago
  Why can't he say that? Several people in HN should know more about OO than Armstrong. There are academics that have taught and worked for decades on OO systems and concepts among the crowd, unlike Joe. In general, popular language creators are hardly the more knowledgable of the various PL concepts and issues. Simon Peyton Jones probably knows hundred times more about such stuff than Matz or Guido do, for example.
  - dbecker 14y ago
    It's worth pointing out that the original comment claimed Armstrong had no OO experience... not simply that Armstrong wasn't the most knowledgable OO programmer on HN.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
beagle3 14y ago
He's humble. If you read what he wrote (not just this quote), it is clear that he has a better grasp of OO than most OO practitioners and language designers. And especially since OO is not well defined (see pg's quote of Jon Rees' characterization), most OO people can, and often do, claim everyone who uses a different OO definition than they do has no experience.
aidos 14y ago
The quote posted in the initial comment really has no relevance to Armin's article so it's fair enough to call it out in this context. To attack the quote itself by simply assuming the author is inexperienced in OO just silly. Particularly so, given that Joe Armstrong has a grasp of computer languages that most of us could only ever dream of.
- stonemetal 14y ago
  To attack the quote itself by simply assuming the author is inexperienced in OO just silly. No one is assuming anything about his OO skills, they are reading the words written and assuming the author isn't lying.
  - aidos 14y ago
    Erm, really? Love it when people write about OO without OO experience.
    - Uchikoma 14y ago
      I stand to this quote, Joe Armstrong has no documented OO experience (OO development for some years, development of an OO language etc.) and is quoted as an expert on the topic of classes. None of the people who have voted down all my comments have shown any experience in OO/classes development of Joe Armstrong. Joe Armstrong admitted to bash OO in a blog post ("silly" see quote above) to stir up people. [Edit] It's the same when people quote Linus on GUIs. He might be an excellent kernel hacker, with a great understanding of large scale open source development, but his opinion on GUI is as good as everyone else. Or how people quote Wozniak on everything. This is not science but a guru cult. I'm proposing that we move our industry to facts and experiments and end the pop culture and guru cults. I'm not with Raganwald that we should embrace this pop culture. This is the reason that I vehemently disagree when people cite Joe Armstrong as an expert on classes or when Joe Armstrong tries to stir up people my bashing OO.
dbecker 14y ago
Designing Erlang is an impressive accomplishment as computing goes. I don't know why you insist Armstrong is a dilettante without any basis.
- Uchikoma 14y ago
  (as a side note, your argument does not make logical sense. Designing A does not make me an expert in B.) I do not "insist" that he is a "dilettante", I question people on this thread quoting him as an expert on OO as there without showing that he is an expert on OO. Beside I give circumstantial evidence why he isn't ("Tried Java ...", "Threw C++ book at the wall ..."). I think it's important to differentiate strong opinion from expert. And there are more indications: His understanding of "isolation" in the quoted text above is very influenced by him being the Erlang creator and the way Erlang thinks of isolation (processes). None of the (C++/Java/Ruby) OO programmers I know would use "isolation" in an OO context that sense (one error crashing other programs in the same VM).

tikhonj 14y ago

OCaml, as the name ("Objective Caml") implies, also supports object-oriented programming. It actually has a pretty clever implementation of it as well. That said, many people tend to stick to the functional bits of OCaml and don't venture out into the OOP bits very often.

crntaylor 14y ago
I thought about italicising OCaml as well, but I'd hesitate to call it an object-oriented language. It's more like a functional language that happens to have an object system. Likewise Common Lisp has an object system (CLOS) but I wouldn't call it an object-oriented language.