Growing a Language, by Guy Steele

When I saw Guy give this talk I was absolutely floored. Both the content and the style was impressive, the hand drawn transparencies, layered one on top of the other. It was the first time I realized one could give a talk with a high degree of style, that their were geniuses in our field. Guy and Gabriel's HOPL 50-in-50 talk was also very stylistic, but not as profound in content (more like entertainment).

Definitely one of the smartest and most talented persons in our field (OO PL).

Some of the previous submissions:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=68918

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=92542

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=122989

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=150863

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152311 <- 7 comments

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=626380

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=827107

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2359174 <- 21 comments

This is a fabulous talk that I thoroughly commend. It's also, perhaps, for a slightly limited audience, but it shouldn't be. I think every programmer should see the whole thing, but most won't bother. Which is a shame.

Sadly, since the talk was recorded in 1998 only generics have been added to Java. In addition, generics based on erasure may have been added as a wart that can't easily be removed.

Happily, John Rose recently posted a proposal on how value types and tuples might look when added to Java:

https://blogs.oracle.com/jrose/entry/value_types_in_the_vm

⍝ I'm sure that GLS knows this, but ∆ (delta) is a valid APL symbol (APL\SV) that looks like one of the primitives but may be user-defined. As I recall (it's been a while since I sat in front of a Selectric with an appropriate typeball or a real 3270 with an overflowing ashtray sitting next to it), it's unfortunately the only one, so it was understandably handwaved away.

Steele's approach to computer logic is always a delight.