A fun coffee table book on a bunch of different programming langauges https://hellobook.io/
An opinionated history of programming languages
31–40 of 135 posts
Re: An opinionated history of programming languages
#32Seems like some tree-roots are missing -- Algol??! PL/(I/M)? B(CPL)? Snobol? APL? Simula? Link between Smalltalk and C++?
Seems like most of the interesting history is missing, perhaps because it happened before the author was born.
I bought this from Amazon UK like 22 years ago. (Should have bought Amazon stock instead ..)
https://www.amazon.com/History-Programming-Languages-Thomas-...
It's one those books I return to, every few years. Recommended. Maybe the papers are available online somewhere by now?
Re: An opinionated history of programming languages
#33What interesting opinions. Rust not being a candidate for designing a future language? But C++ being a candidate for designing a future language? Go having remarkably poor design? Ruby dying, but Python and Perl not? I would really like to have a rationale for those decisions. It would be interesting to see how you can come to this conclusions.
I would have thought that at least half of your opinions were unexpected: Go's design is at the very least controversial and considered poor by a vocal subset of the hackernews and programming community. Python is decidedly not dying... it's still the dominating game in town for ML and data science. I'm surprised anybody would posit that Python were dying. Perl definitely feels like it should be in Ruby's camp.
Python is still vital and thriving but I wouldn't be surprised if its market share is declining (slowly). As you say, it's dominant for data science... but recently it and R were the only practical choices... now other languages (Julia, for example) are valid options. The development of alternative Jupyter (formerly IPython) kernels has accelerated adoption of other languages. Similarly, a few years back it seemed like Flask and Django were vastly dominant frameworks for building APIs, now similar frameworks exist in tons of languages. None of this is to imply that Python is anywhere close to dead, but my personal opinion is that "peak Python" is behind us.
Re: An opinionated history of programming languages
#34What interesting opinions. Rust not being a candidate for designing a future language? But C++ being a candidate for designing a future language? Go having remarkably poor design? Ruby dying, but Python and Perl not? I would really like to have a rationale for those decisions. It would be interesting to see how you can come to this conclusions.
Computer languages to me looks like a fashion industry. So personally I am trying (not always successfully) to ignore all of those discussions about perceived dis-/advantages. I pick what I personally like or if that's the case what client insists to be used and do not give much hoot about what is the latest popular opinion about the subject.
Re: An opinionated history of programming languages
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should there be a link between C++ and Smalltalk?
Besides the fact that they have object orientation as a guiding paradigm? (Different though their faithfulness and implementation may be)
C++ and Smalltalk-80 have a common ancestor called Simula 67, but neither Smalltalk was derived from C++ nor vice versa.
Re: An opinionated history of programming languages
#36What interesting opinions. Rust not being a candidate for designing a future language? But C++ being a candidate for designing a future language? Go having remarkably poor design? Ruby dying, but Python and Perl not? I would really like to have a rationale for those decisions. It would be interesting to see how you can come to this conclusions.
I would have thought that at least half of your opinions were unexpected: Go's design is at the very least controversial and considered poor by a vocal subset of the hackernews and programming community. Python is decidedly not dying... it's still the dominating game in town for ML and data science. I'm surprised anybody would posit that Python were dying. Perl definitely feels like it should be in Ruby's camp.
> Go's design is at the very least controversial and considered poor by a vocal subset of the hackernews and programming community.
I'm in the camp of the rationales of Go's design being controversial. But the actual design is not bad IMO. For what Go wants to be (a modern C), it is not a bad design. But who wants a modern C? I don't. But if Go were available in the 90s, I would have jumped at the opportunity to write programs in it.
> Python is decidedly not dying... it's still the dominating game in town for ML and data science. I'm surprised anybody would posit that Python were dying. Perl definitely feels like it should be in Ruby's camp.
I didn't say that I would consider Python a dying language. But considering Ruby dying and Perl don't, is very weird. OTOH Ruby and Python aren't gaining any new usecases (but also aren't losing anything rapidly AFAIK) whereas Perl ... has any left besides very legacy code?
Putting Perl and Python into the same group and Ruby in another is certainly an interesting choice.
Re: An opinionated history of programming languages
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should there be a link between C++ and Smalltalk?
Well, because OO - and if Simula isn't there, then that's where the link would be. Even if Simula did come first, ST is certainly the "OO root" that most people know, so I'm fine with Simula -> ST -> C++ as a reasonable path.
This is a widespread misconception. The first Smalltalk version in 1972 didn't even have inheritance. Although Kay is ascribed the term object orientation, he understands it to mean something quite different than most. It was Ingalls who first introduced the properties generally referred to as object-oriented and implemented in Simula as early as 1967 into his version Smalltalk-76. The influence of Smalltalk is generally overestimated.
Re: An opinionated history of programming languages
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would have thought that at least half of your opinions were unexpected: Go's design is at the very least controversial and considered poor by a vocal subset of the hackernews and programming community. Python is decidedly not dying... it's still the dominating game in town for ML and data science. I'm surprised anybody would posit that Python were dying. Perl definitely feels like it should be in Ruby's camp.
> Go's design is at the very least controversial and considered poor by a vocal subset of the hackernews and programming community. I'm in the camp of the rationales of Go's design being controversial. But the actual design is not bad IMO. For what Go wants to be (a modern C), it is not a bad design. But who wants a modern C? I don't. But if Go were available in the 90s, I would have jumped at the opportunity to writ…
[deleted]
Re: An opinionated history of programming languages
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should there be a link between C++ and Smalltalk?
From its creator's own words: https://www.stroustrup.com/bs_faq.html#from-Smalltalk > C++ got its Object-Oriented concepts from Smalltalk? > No. C++ got the key notions of classes, derived classes, virtual functions (in other words, the notions of encapsulation, inheritance and polymorphism) from Simula just like Smalltalk did. In terms of family relationships, C++ and Smalltalk are siblings.
So a good reason to do without the link. If so, C++ and Smalltalk-80 would have to point to Simula 67. But it does not look like the author of the referenced article optimized for scientific accuracy anyway.
Re: An opinionated history of programming languages
#40Maybe my color perception is off, but it looks like Python is considered a root language with no significant predecessors. Which doesn't seem correct - Python wasn't so novel that it introduced new programming paradigms. Also, no asterisk (modern, mature compiler & runtime) for OCaml?
> Maybe my color perception is off
It's interesting to see this article on the front page at the same time as the Color Blindness article [1] discussing the difficulty of distinguishing tiny color spots. I'm not color blind, but I needed to zoom in on the first figure to see the difference between the red dot and the other red dot. Not to mention the black dot, the dark green dot that looks black at a distance, and the black dot that's actually an asterisk. Now I understand why these are so hard to distinguish.