Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The Gang of Four book exists because Java made functions second-class citizens Why do people write silly things like this? GoF was published in 1995, the same year Java was first released, and includes neither Java code nor any mention of Java. Java had no influence on that book.
iLemming, your reply is [dead] and I don't know why. Responding to parts of it: > Peter Norvig made this argument explicitly in 1998, showing 16 of 23 patterns are "invisible or simpler" in Lisp The GoF book even mentions this so Norvig's presentation is a useful read, but even the authors of the book knew it was true. It's not like he added a new idea with that bit you quoted, the useful parts of the presentation we…
You can replace Java there with pretty much any OOP language, where functions are not first-class citizens, and it will still be true. There are no "false claims" here. The main point is valid. We have orchestrated an entire industry around "objects", while much simpler abstractions have already existed. You probably just have not experienced the "true" nature of Lisp, where you can interactively change any behavior of the running program, directly from your editor, without linking, linting, compiling, restarting or even saving the code you type. The process is an enormously joyful experience, it feels like playing a video game. You probably have little idea of what we've lost and what we've gained from the industry heavily tilting towards OOP.