Brief followup thoughts on the previous article. Read that first. Classes? Classes are really just techniques to help construct objects. In an “Assemblage” language the Assemblage or Pattern itself is the way you construct the objects. The grammar explains how to parse a plain EDN or JSON-like data-literal into the assemblage. So perhaps we don’t […]
Category Archives: Opinion
What’s wrong with OO?
Some thinking over at Quora : What’s wrong with OO? Continuing some thoughts that have been haunting me since I originally phrased them in the answer about designing the perfect programming language : Phil Jones’s answer to How would you design the perfect programming language?. And in response to Alan Mellor‘s comment on Phil Jones’s […]
A Tower of Simple Systems
I posted this on Future Programming at Quora : A Tower of Simple Systems Re-reading the answer I reposted here a couple of days ago about the “Holy Grail” of programming language design : modification. https://www.quora.com/q/qqylyzqgpwisoecc/What-is-the-Holy-Grail-of-programming-language-design So here’s a question. A dumb solution … But what if we created a system as a tower of […]
On Architecture and Modules
Another long Quora Answer Why is it important to agree on software architecture principles? In a sense, some of this is an update on my thinking on “modularity” (eg. ThoughtStorms:DecompositionByLanguageIsProbablyAModularityMistake Well, possibly it’s only important in an “organizational” sense. In that people in your team or project need to be aligned in their conception of […]
Which language is better for creating DSLs, Clojure or Haskell?
Another Quora answer. Part of my increasing admiration for the virtues of EDN in Clojure. Which language is better for creating DSLs, Clojure or Haskell? Clojure has a slightly different philosophy than most Lisps, I think. In Clojure you’d be more likely to make your “DSL” in EDN (“Extensible Data Notation”, which is a bit […]
Pharo and a new Smalltalk
On Quora, I’m often ranting about Smalltalk. And how I’d like to see a “clean-slate” reinvention. Much as Clojure is a clean-slate reinvention of Common Lisp. Over on this answer I was asked what I think of Pharo. My response veered off somewhat : I’ve had a quick look at Pharo. And it’s certainly quite […]
A Replacement for PHP
I asked Quora for ideas for how a replacement PHP might look. On the whole people are not enthusiastic. Alexander Tchitchigin had an interesting answer, but which focused on the basic theme of “once we move away from PHP’s weaknesses, we might as well use any language. Which prompted me to write this comment elaborating […]
Expression in Programming Languages
Source: My Quora Answer : If Clojure is so expressive, and is basically Lisp, hasn’t there been any progress in expressivity in the last 50 years? Well, as Paul Graham put it quite well, Lisp started as a kind of maths. That’s why it doesn’t go out of date. Or not in the short term. […]
Could the internet disappear within 20 years?
From a Quora answer I just made : The protocol will still exist. But there is now a real danger that “the internet” will have been successfully enclosed by private corporations. What will that look like? 1. the end of net neutrality means that the phone companies / network providers can choose to prioritise packets […]
What's wrong with C++?
Another Quora answer : Phil Jones’s answer to Why is C++ considered a bad language? This is one of those rare occasions I disagree with Simon Kinahan; although his answer sets the scene for this one. [Simon says that C++ isn’t a bad language. It’s the right choice if you need low-level memory control and […]