Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Brad Cox has died

legacy.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 197 posts

Re: Brad Cox has died

#21

Post by sidpatil »

dwheeler wrote: post #11

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…

> No one was interested in his idea of trying to monitor component use during runtime to pay developers.

This reminds me of Project Xanadu's ideas about transclusions and associated royalties.

What a coincidence that this was posted recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25875386

Re: Brad Cox has died

#22

Post by robotresearcher »

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…

Many ICs contain state. That's RAM's purpose, for example.

The analogy with OOP is that (ideally) you don't need to know how it works internally: you just use the external interface.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#23

Post by aidenn0 »

robotresearcher wrote: post #22
lytol wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Many ICs contain state. That's RAM's purpose, for example. The analogy with OOP is that (ideally) you don't need to know how it works internally: you just use the external interface.

Heck, many mixed-signal ICs are much harder to use correctly than a typical object; Things like "Vdd must be brought up to +6V or higher before CLK begins toggling" are not too uncommon to see.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#25

Post by gdubs »

[BradCox release]

RIP.

I owe so much to Objective-C. My early love for the language is what launched my own career, and inspired a love for programming in general. Thank you, Brad Cox.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#26

Post by saagarjha »

:(

Objective-C was the “object oriented C” that was simple and a delight to use…words that I certainly would not use to describe competing efforts. The syntax might be a little disagreeable–a concession to strict C compatibility–but the language itself is remarkably clean and, dare I say, pretty. Brad Cox struck the balance between flexibility and practicality better than almost anyone else before or since.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#27

Post by [deleted] »

aidenn0 wrote: post #23
robotresearcher wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many ICs contain state. That's RAM's purpose, for example. The analogy with OOP is that (ideally) you don't need to know how it works internally: you just use the external interface.

Heck, many mixed-signal ICs are much harder to use correctly than a typical object; Things like "Vdd must be brought up to +6V or higher before CLK begins toggling" are not too uncommon to see.

[deleted]

Re: Brad Cox has died

#28

Post by systemvoltage »

aidenn0 wrote: post #23
robotresearcher wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many ICs contain state. That's RAM's purpose, for example. The analogy with OOP is that (ideally) you don't need to know how it works internally: you just use the external interface.

Heck, many mixed-signal ICs are much harder to use correctly than a typical object; Things like "Vdd must be brought up to +6V or higher before CLK begins toggling" are not too uncommon to see.

It's a loose analogy. You're going to find exceptions. I think its a fantastic analogy to describe what a class is despite of some exceptions.

Re: Brad Cox has died

#29

Post by luxuryballs »

btilly wrote: post #12

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.

I was thinking about how the vaccine just started rolling out and has already killed “frail” people, but I have no knowledge of this guy other than him being a computer programmer... gulp (I am a computer programmer)

Re: Brad Cox has died

#30

Post by gigantor »

There is no doubting the legacy of Objective-C (especially given the high likelihood you are reading this post on a mobile device, using app written in Objective-C), but to truly appreciate Brad's legacy, am curious about the appeal of using Objective-C.

Having developed only one small iOS app with Objective-C code, I was mostly turned off by its overall verbosity in the context of NS prefixes. Hence, I ask the question on behalf myself and others who did not appreciate the language and did not give it a proper chance... what did I miss and what are its top appeals?

Nevertheless, Rest In Peace to a pioneer.

Post reply on HN