Brad Cox has died • Hacker News Board

Re: Brad Cox has died

#11

Post by dwheeler » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

Very sad. I had the privilege of taking a class from him at George Mason University, and he was (unsurprisingly) very knowledgeable.

He worked hard to enable software reuse. No one was interested in his idea of trying to monitor component use during runtime to pay developers. That was an unworkable approach, and I told him that then. But the general world of making it easy to reuse components is a reality today, via open source software and package managers.

So, a hat-tip to him and all the other pioneers who helped make the world a better place.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#12

Post by btilly » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

Does anyone know what he died of?

Given current events, my assumption is COVID-19. But I know that I'm assuming that too often. Old people do die of other things.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#13

Post by smaili » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 10:45 PM UTC

Very sad, rest in peace and thank you for all your contributions.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#14

Post by lytol » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

jhbadger wrote: post #2

I always liked his analogy for object oriented programming as "software ICs" -- just as in hardware development, you don't have to worry about what goes on in a chip (just what it takes as input and gives as output), so too a well designed object works.

Interestingly, I feel like this comparison to an IC and input(s) -> output(s) is more akin to functional approaches, and many people complain about OOP being the opposite.

To quote Joe Armstrong:

> I think the lack of reusability comes in object-oriented languages, not functional languages. Because the problem with object-oriented languages is they’ve got all this implicit environment that they carry around with them. You wanted a banana but what you got was a gorilla holding the banana and the entire jungle. If you have referentially transparent code, if you have pure functions — all the data comes in its input arguments and everything goes out and leave no state behind — it’s incredibly reusable.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#15

Post by armadsen » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

Objective-C is the programming language that made me fall in love with programming, and led to my career for the past 14 years.

I never met Brad Cox, but the work he did to create it has had a huge impact on my life. Watching his long interview with the computer history museum was a delight and made me feel like I knew him just a little.

Sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#16

Post by bartmika » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

> On one scuba diving excursion while in the compound having lunch, Brad engaged a couple from Germany in conversation. Brad asked about the fellow travelers occupation and discovered he was a computer programmer. Lifewise, Brad was asked about his life's work and stated I am also a computer programmer. "What do you do?" Brad was asked. I wrote Objective-C. Astonished, the gentlerman said, "No, Brad Cox wrote that". "Hi, I am Brad Cox", was the response and the introduction.

Wonderful story. I wish his family all the best.

I love Objective-C and consider it a beautiful language. Back in the day I re-discovered my love for programming when I started to learn this language. This was when I was still in the Java world.

As a side project I tried to build a drone (unmanned navel vehicle) powered by objective-c. I have abandoned the effort but posted the code on GitHub - it was a joy to work with the language and the funnest side project I’ve worked with.

These days I work with python and golang for job/hobby but I always am grateful to have spent time with objective-c. Reflecting back if I haven’t spent time with this language, today I would of not been a programmer.

Thank you Brad Cox for your work and positive influence.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#17

Post by dilap » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

Great language. Amazing bang for the buck. RIP.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#18

Post by kdavis » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 10:53 PM UTC

Many moons ago I used to work with Brad in DC. He never let on that he was a world famous computer scientist. He slinged code shoulder to shoulder with us plebes.

He was a Mensch.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#19

Post by cxr » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 10:53 PM UTC

I mentioned Brad Cox's "software ICs" today on the phone in a conversation about big ideas in programming, not knowing that he'd passed away a couple weeks ago.

Here's the Objective-C paper at last year's HOPL:

"The origins of Objective-C at PPI/Stepstone and its evolution at NeXT"

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3386332

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23516334

Re: Brad Cox has died

#20

Post by moron4hire » Fri, Jan 22, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

lytol wrote: post #14

jhbadger wrote: post #2

I always liked his analogy for object oriented programming as "software ICs" -- just as in hardware development, you don't have to worry about what goes on in a chip (just what it takes as input and gives as output), so too a well designed object works.

Interestingly, I feel like this comparison to an IC and input(s) -> output(s) is more akin to functional approaches, and many people complain about OOP being the opposite. To quote Joe Armstrong: > I think the lack of reusability comes in object-oriented languages, not functional languages. Because the problem with object-oriented languages is they’ve got all this implicit environment that they carry around with them…

My reaction to PT fundamentalists is always the same. "Jesus, what the hell have I been doing, reusing all this unreusable OOP code?"