who called it object oriented programming and not class struggle

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elle mundy

Like 9 Jul 2023 at 22:34 | Open on mastodon.world

63 comments

emily

@exchgr @rmondello bänger tweet

9 Jul 2023 at 22:45 | Open on social.emily.news

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@exchgr hilarious.

Alan Kay gave it the term.

"I made up the term object-oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind."

Though, as far as I've observed Alan Kay is pretty aware of his privilege. I don't know if he's classist? ;)

He is opinionated: https://youtu.be/Lb-cKVxmVGk

I *think* he referred to it as "Object Oriented" because he was inspired by Sketchpad:

https://youtu.be/495nCzxM9PI

So, the way Sketchpad rendered objects are manipulated and there is inheritance to "child" objects when a "master" object (as in "master drawing" and Alan May describes how they are now called "classes" because of Simula) is modified for example.

(Dr. Ivan Sutherland [the creator of Sketchpad] was Alan Kay's doctoral advisor and one of the tasks Alan Kay had to do as a grad student was port Sketchpad to different hardware than what it was originally written to use)

@exchgr hilarious.

Alan Kay gave it the term.

"I made up the term object-oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind."

Though, as far as I've observed Alan Kay is pretty aware of his privilege. I don't know if he's classist? ;)

He is opinionated: https://youtu.be/Lb-cKVxmVGk

I *think* he referred to it as "Object Oriented" because he was inspired by Sketchpad:

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9 Jul 2023 at 23:13 | Open on rap.social

elle mundy

@teajaygrey he also regretted naming it that, wishing he’d focused more on the point, which was the messaging between objects

9 Jul 2023 at 23:16 | Open on mastodon.world

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@exchgr sure, but looking at Sketchpad and knowing Alan Kay's relationship to it, perhaps we can at least understand his rationale at the time?

IMHO, many in the field never understood object-oriented paradigms well at all. I only postulate that perhaps if they were more familiar with its backstory they might have a better comprehension of its etymology if nothing else.

There are similar paradigms, from other fields, e.g. recursion in mathematics and Linguistics (which sure, exists in programming too, but how many people talk about "recursive oriented programming"?)

@exchgr sure, but looking at Sketchpad and knowing Alan Kay's relationship to it, perhaps we can at least understand his rationale at the time?

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9 Jul 2023 at 23:25 | Open on rap.social

Óscar Morales Vivó

@teajaygrey @exchgr I'd expect Mr. Kay to mean what he did, in other words SmallTalk.

But of course everyone went a different direction because performance (and then somehow we all ended up running JS anyway).

10 Jul 2023 at 22:09 | Open on sfba.social

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@MyLittleMetroid The back story behind SmallTalk is fascinating too. I'm not at a laptop to dig it up presently, but it was done almost as a dare.

My crude summary: SmallTalk was created essentially to prove a point that a powerful program could be implemented in approximately a page of code.

Albeit, it grew from that original proof of concept.

If you ever have an opportunity to visit DynamicLand in Oakland, it embodies a similar ethos. No surprise, Alan Kay was one of the individuals behind that research project.

They have a section where the operating code is all printed out on a board and the core kernel again: is basically just a page of code.

Albeit, the underlying complexity (implemented atop Lua, which is atop a bunch of other stuff) is obfuscated in that presentation, but: it's a welcome obfuscation. It allows the users to keep things simple and powerful and intuitive and elegant. It's a fascinating brainstorming work shop. Essentially making prototyping powerfully interactive systems as superficially simplistic as child's play in a preschool.

After visiting it, from my vantage at least: it became painfully clear both how far ahead visionaries such as Alan Kay and his collaborators are, and how far behind almost everything else in the field remains.

@exchgr

@MyLittleMetroid The back story behind SmallTalk is fascinating too. I'm not at a laptop to dig it up presently, but it was done almost as a dare.

My crude summary: SmallTalk was created essentially to prove a point that a powerful program could be implemented in approximately a page of code.

Albeit, it grew from that original proof of concept.

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10 Jul 2023 at 22:48 | Open on rap.social

Óscar Morales Vivó

@teajaygrey @exchgr Goes to show you can't actually create a powerful, successful programming language by attempting to create a powerful, successful programming language (see also C, Javascript...). 🤣