Will Aurora 'start' the computer revolution?

[Kale]

I was watching an old seminar on google video the other day by Alan Kay.

The Computer Revolution hasn't happend yet.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2950949730059754521

There is a quote in there, which is: "I invented the term Object-Oriented, and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind".

Alan Kay goes on to explain why people havn't fully explored the possibilities of OOP and what might lie ahead. In relation to the above quote AK was upset too, because when he coined the term OOP he was thinking of a new language and one which hadn't been invented yet. One which could gracefully implement the OOP paradigm and which programmers would use the world over. AK has tried to start this off with Squeak, but i think thats doomed to fail.

Could Aurora be this language? It already seems more than capable of handling any task. It's as powerful as C/++ and IMHO a lot more elegant. Don't get me wrong, im no code guru, but there's something about Aurora which is starting to stand out as very special.

[Ionic Wind Support Team]

Thanks.

C++ is a good language, but it has C as it's shortcoming.

[Kale]

Thanks.

C++ is a good language, but it has C as it's shortcoming.

Yep, i agree.

[Brandlingill]

Hi.

Could someone please explain how C is a shortcoming? Not that I disagree, I just don't know the issues that make it a shortcoming.

[Rock Ridge Farm (Larry)]

In the early 70's we thought C was the greatest language ever.
Where do you think we would be without it?
No Unix, No Linux, games would be in deep poo-poo, you would still be running DOS.
Yup - I can see that C is truly a short comming.

[Ionic Wind Support Team]

Hi.

Could someone please explain how C is a shortcoming? Not that I disagree, I just don't know the issues that make it a shortcoming.

To really understand you would need to be versed in C++.  C++ was grafted onto the C standard and it brought along all of the deficiencies with it.  Instead of creating an original OOP language, like we are trying to do.

In the early 70's we thought C was the greatest language ever.
Where do you think we would be without it?
No Unix, No Linux, games would be in deep poo-poo, you would still be running DOS.
Yup - I can see that C is truly a short comming.

I've been a C programmer for 30+ years now.  And while C is a very versitle language it has a few glaring areas that need standardization till this day.  The C standard draft isn't strict enough yet to allow easily porting your code from one compiler implimentation to another without having to make many changes.

Many parts of the C runtime are still not thread safe, and that varies from implimentation to implimentation.  The language is in need of a datatype overhaul as well.  Technology has improved significantly in the last 30 years yet the language has not taken advantage of that technology natively.  It is up to implimentors to add their own non standardized specifics to the language.  The disagreement over what to call a native 64 bit data type comes to mind.  And now that 64 bit PC's are becoming more common it is time to consider the future and the possibility of larger integer types.

It has now been seven years since the last update of the C standard, for those of you that like to read these things search for ISO/IEC 9899:1999

The C99 Rationale:

http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/WG14/www/docs/C99RationaleV5.10.pdf

Paul.

[kryton9]

HyperTalk was the most fun language I ever used. It was on the Macintosh and was Object Oriented. It made programming a real blast. I thought it would revolutionize the world, and to some extent for a brief period it did. But I think being on the Mac and the Boom of PC's sort of killed it.

If someone could make a compiled hypertalk type language today... wow that would be the revolution.

Breaking up input you actually used words and thing such as first word, second word... it was amazing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HyperTalk

Look at the Sample scripts, it was very neat!!

[Kale]

Didn't Hypertalk evolve into modern day AppleScript? They look very similar.

[J B Wood (Zumwalt)]

Holy cow, thats the same language I used on Apple IIgs machines.
Thats Apple scripting alright.

[Kale]

Holy cow, thats the same language I used on Apple IIgs machines.
Thats Apple scripting alright.

Yep, i thought so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleScript

[kryton9]

It also says Lingo the macrocedia language is based on it. So one of these days I will need to check into it too.

[Brandlingill]

To really understand you would need to be versed in C++.  C++ was grafted onto the C standard and it brought along all of the deficiencies with it.  Instead of creating an original OOP language, like we are trying to do.

Thanks Paul.

[kryton9]

Kale, finally had time to watch the video you linked too. Thanks was very informative and interesting.