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0 pointspjmlp7mo ago0 comments

Smalltalk, Interlisp-D, and Mesa/Cedar as the languages for full graphical workstations.

Instead we got UNIX and C.

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pron7mo ago

We also got Java and Python (and VB for a while), which means there is no intrinsic, irrational bias against those approaches. A romantic view of those languages tends to ignore their serious shortcomings at the time they were presented. It's like claiming the market was irrational when it preferred VHS to Betamax despite the latter's better quality, while neglecting to mention it had a worse recording time, which mattered more to more people. When compating two things, it's not enough to mention the areas where X is better than Y; you also need to consider those where X is worse.

pjmlpOP7mo ago

Yes we did, and unfortunately all of them have done design mistakes that keep to this day trying to fix.

Had Java actually been designed for where it stands today, instead for set top boxes and browser applets, retrofitting the value types, AOT compilation and low level capabilities already available in Modula-3 and Eiffel wouldn't be such an engineering feat that is already on 15 years mark.

Interestingly enough, value classes approach remind very much how expanded classes work in Eiffel.

Likewise money keeps being burned into making industry adopt a JIT compiler into CPython, which they could have been enjoying with Smalltalk and Lisp.

pron7mo ago

Smalltalk had design mistakes aplenty. Comparing the downsides of the languages you like less with the upsides of the languages you like more is not a great way to understand why things are done the way they're done. Usually, it's not because people chose the worse options, but because each option has pros and cons, and at the time a choice is made, the chosen option's balance of pros and cons was more suitable to people's needs than the alternatives.

It may sometimes be the case that we say, oh, that particular feature of some unchosen language can be very useful for us now, but that is something very different from we should have chosen that other language - with all its pros and cons - back then.

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pron7mo ago

pjmlpOP7mo ago

Yes we did, and unfortunately all of them have done design mistakes that keep to this day trying to fix.

Interestingly enough, value classes approach remind very much how expanded classes work in Eiffel.

Likewise money keeps being burned into making industry adopt a JIT compiler into CPython, which they could have been enjoying with Smalltalk and Lisp.

pron7mo ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse