Ask HN: When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages?

#1

Post by gruseom » Sat, Feb 07, 2009, 7:38 AM UTC

This question came up in another thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470838) and got me thinking. Smalltalk dates from the early 70s; Lisp, APL, and Forth are all earlier. When was the last innovation that can truly be called fundamental?

We're not talking language features here. Obviously a great deal of refinement and elaboration has taken place since 1971. To qualify, an idea has to be deeper than that. It needs to have the paradigmatic quality that the above do. (Edit: I'm not looking for historical arguments so much as asking what ideas people feel have this quality.)

The only other candidate I can think of off the top of my head is Backus' 1977 work on FP, which certainly struck me as fundamental when I read it, though now I'm not so sure.

Others?

Re: Ask HN: When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages?

#2

Post by pg » Sat, Feb 07, 2009, 7:54 AM UTC

When was any? I find these sorts of things crumble in your hands, because as soon as you pick a candidate you find yourself thinking "but that was just a variant of such-and-such earlier idea."

Re: Ask HN: When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages?

#3

Post by shailesh » Sat, Feb 07, 2009, 8:08 AM UTC

The question reminds of the notion of processes and channels in Occam with constructs for parallelizing based on Tony Hoare's CSP theory.

Re: Ask HN: When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages?

#4

Post by sctb » Sat, Feb 07, 2009, 8:16 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #2

When was any? I find these sorts of things crumble in your hands, because as soon as you pick a candidate you find yourself thinking "but that was just a variant of such-and-such earlier idea."

I think that such transformational ideas, although possibly variations on previous ideas like you say, can have a certain distinct paradigmatic quality that the OP is referring to. I would offer up Miranda (1985) as an example: non-strict, purely functional.

Re: Ask HN: When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages?

#5

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Feb 07, 2009, 8:17 AM UTC

sctb wrote: post #4

pg wrote: post #2

When was any? I find these sorts of things crumble in your hands, because as soon as you pick a candidate you find yourself thinking "but that was just a variant of such-and-such earlier idea."

I think that such transformational ideas, although possibly variations on previous ideas like you say, can have a certain distinct paradigmatic quality that the OP is referring to. I would offer up Miranda (1985) as an example: non-strict, purely functional.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages?

#6

Post by gruseom » Sat, Feb 07, 2009, 8:21 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #2

When was any? I find these sorts of things crumble in your hands, because as soon as you pick a candidate you find yourself thinking "but that was just a variant of such-and-such earlier idea."

I know what you mean - Smalltalk was Lisp + Simula and so on. Yet even if everything's a hybrid, some hybrids feel plainly derivative while others seem magically deep. In order to avoid tedious arguments about historical primacy, perhaps a better way to phrase the question is: what languages (or language ideas) feel most fundamental to people? I've given my list. What strikes me is how there isn't anything more recent on it. This may just be my ignorance.

Re: Ask HN: When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages?

#7

Post by sctb » Sat, Feb 07, 2009, 8:24 AM UTC

sctb wrote: post #4

pg wrote: post #2

When was any? I find these sorts of things crumble in your hands, because as soon as you pick a candidate you find yourself thinking "but that was just a variant of such-and-such earlier idea."

I think that such transformational ideas, although possibly variations on previous ideas like you say, can have a certain distinct paradigmatic quality that the OP is referring to. I would offer up Miranda (1985) as an example: non-strict, purely functional.

It appears that Turner has languages in this paradigm dating back to 1972 with SASL. Are there others?

Re: Ask HN: When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages?

#8

Post by wheels » Sat, Feb 07, 2009, 8:54 AM UTC

Two things that I'd probably call just features of OO languages, but seem significant:

- Type-safe generic programming

- Introspection

Re: Ask HN: When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages?

#9

Post by nostrademons » Sat, Feb 07, 2009, 9:02 AM UTC

Most really fundamental ideas are only recognizable in hindsight, after people have built other ideas on top of them. If I remember the early/mid 80s correctly, the hot language was BASIC because it came with most microcomputers and would supposedly enable a new generation of hobbyist programmers. (Which it did, but they grew up to program in C++, Python, and JavaScript, not Basic.)

There're a lot of really interesting ideas going on in the programming language research community right now. Subtext, Epigram, associated types, Goo(ze) (which unfortunately seems to have been abandoned), JoCaml, STM, etc. Unfortunately, it probably won't be possible to judge the worth of these ideas for another 20 years.

Re: Ask HN: When was the last really transformational idea in programming languages?

#10

Post by jlouis » Sat, Feb 07, 2009, 9:17 AM UTC

Operational semantics has transformed language theory quite a lot in my opinion. It has set a new precedent for precision in describing programming languages. I would hope that more new languages began to pick that idea up. And then to use formal machine verified methods for verifying its meta-theory.