Comment by lucozade | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lucozade | Hacker News Reader

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Sorry to be that guy but a lot of what we've come to know as OO is more directly descended from Simula because that was a big inspiration for Bjarne.

As such, C++, Java and C#, which constitute a significant chunk of OO programming, are probably better thought of as descended from Simula (and C).

There's a clearer lineage to the likes of Ruby and Objective-C, and to a lesser extent Javascript and Python.

I would definitely concur regarding looking into it, it definitely makes you think about things in a different way.

Whether or not it makes one a better programmer, I can't say. I only programmed professionally in it for a relatively brief time and it was a hugely frustrating experience. I was glad to get out of it.

In the sense that it made me understand that a programming environment has a big influence on how well a codebase can scale then, yes, I learnt loads. But that was because it really wasn't very good at scaling without an awful lot of TLC. I moved onto a Java application which was bliss by comparison (ironically, given its reputation for classpath hell etc).

This was some years ago mind so the state of the art of Smalltalk has, I'm sure, moved on.

> what we've come to know as OO is more directly descended from Simula

True, what is often called object oriented is often more about classes and inheritance, and less about (instantiated) objects communicating via messages.

It's really rather odd how Smalltalk, Strongtalk and Self could be major influences behind the jvm, jre and java - when you look at were java ended up...

[ed: on the other hand if you start with Self and add Algol syntax you get javascript - maybe it makes sense that Strongtalk and Algol makes java...]

I love representations of language history like this one, https://calvinx.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/evo-prog-lang...

Ditto, but that one is terribly wrong.

Mind telling me why and pointing me to a correct resource?

Well look at it; it says Java derives solely from C++, that's not remotely true. It's simplistic and misleading, here's some better ones...

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/b9/45/71/b9457106d7a5d602a2923597d...

https://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/250a-fall-2005/docs/Compu...

> it says Java derives solely from C++, that's not remotely true

Not really, I just assumed the one I posted was trying to highlight syntax similarity. The ones you posted are just as terse, there's no way I can figure out if the Lisp arrow to Java in your first link is something about the type system or how it handles reference or the like

Well, I'll be that guy, I don't care what inspired Bjarne, Simula created the idea of an object, but it wasn't until Smalltalk that object orientation became a paradigm: Smalltalk created OO, not Simula. Object != Object Orientation, Simula was and is a procedural language with objects bolted on after the fact.

C# is a Java clone so I need only address your Java misstatement, Java was far more influenced by Objective C and Smalltalk than by C++ as far as OO goes; it looked to C++ only for syntax. Java is semantically a direct descendant of Smalltalk and was inspired directly by Smalltalk as both of its creators knew Smalltalk and Objective C (another Smalltalk derivative). [1] Direct from the co-creator of java not to mention that Gosling himself was a Smalltalker.

So no, what we know as modern OO came directly from Smalltalk.

[1] https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html

If you look at the actual semantics of classes and objects in C++ and Java, they're arguably closer to Simula than they are to Smalltalk. In C++, this is even more evident by the fact that even some of the syntax is reused, such as "virtual" (although in Simula it originally meant what we today call "abstract").

The difference between the two is that Smalltalk methods semantics are message passing. In Simula, method calls are just that, function calls generalized to have a receiver. And Java follows that pattern.

If Java was a direct descendant of Smalltalk, it would look a lot different. For one thing, it would have a lot less syntax baked into the language, and a lot more closures, from the get go.

I just provided direct quotes from one of the creators of Java, sorry but you're simply wrong to argue you know better what inspired them than they did. Java is a decedent of Smalltalk via Objective C, that is simply a fact. It's well known and accepted they took syntax from C++ as deliberate attempt to entice C++ programmers into Java, that is not evidence they didn't base their inspiration on Smalltalk.

And I quote..

> When I left Sun to go to NeXT, I thought Objective-C was the coolest thing since sliced bread, and I hated C++. So, naturally when I stayed to start the eventually) Java project, Obj-C had a big influence. James Gosling, being much older than I was, he had lots of experience with SmallTalk and Simula68, which we also borrowed from liberally.

Perhaps what inspired them and what their creation most resembles are not necessarily the same thing. It would do some good if both you and your parent poster could agree or disagree with that statement.

Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind. Regardless of what inspired the development of Java (and as this quote makes clear, both Smalltalk and Simula were on the list), the result clearly bears more semblance to Simula.

A relatively simple mental exercise to prove the point is to look at various Simula and Smalltalk constructs, and see how well they map to Java (1.0) constructs. For Simula, you'll find a nearly 1:1 correspondence on syntax alone, with nested functions being the primary pain point. With Smalltalk, you'd stumble as soon as you run into the first block.

Java was far more influenced by Objective C and Smalltalk than by C++ as far as OO goes

Objective-C is message-passing, Java and C++ are not.

You apparently don't know Java's history.

To start Java's interfaces are loosey based on Objective-C protocols.

As for the rest,

https://cs.gmu.edu/~sean/stuff/java-objc.html

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