Allen Wirfs-Brock@awbjs

Dreaming the future of software; Project Editor ECMAScript 2015; Reformed Smalltalker JavaScript historian dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.114… @allenwb@mastodon.social

 Sherwood Oregon USA
wirfs-brock.com/allen
Joined June 2010
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About 10 years ago after I spoke about ES5 at a conference a young person came up to me and asked: Don't you feel bad about the failure of object-oriented programming? 1/
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But, of course, it didn't eliminate the "software engineering crisis". We always build up to and beyond the complexity limits that we know how to handle. There is a continual need for new ideas, languages, tools, methods, etc that will enable us to build next gen apps. 6/
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But that does mean that the previous generations of technology were bad or inadequate or have nothing to contribute to what we do today. Rather they are the foundations we stand upon. 7/7
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iI don’t think I’ve ever seen code that used the 2nd pattern before. But, I like it!
not just pixels@getifyX
19 Mar 2019
Replying to @pauldambra
Compare: var data; if (x > 3) data = x * 2; else if (x % 2 == 0) data = x; else if (x > 10) data = x + 1; else data = 0; vs var data = (x > 3) ? x * 2 : (x % 2 == 0) ? x : (x > 10) ? x + 1 : 0;
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Throwback Tuesday...my 2006 design column in IEEE Software on Looking For Powerful Abstractions explores how I thought about finding meaningful behaviors: wirfs-brock.com/PDFs/013-015… #ResponsibilityDrivenDesign #Objects
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As OO Design approaches were being formalized in late 80s the the debate was between data-driven and behavior-driven (eg, @rebeccawb's RDD "responsibilities"). Successful Smalltalk programmers generally built systems behaviorally. But C++ & Java devs didn't get the message
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The data-driven approach to OO largely derived from DB schemas and Entity-Relationship modeling. The behavioral approach derived from how Smalltalk programmers thought in terms of entities exchanging messages.
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We will look back on this era in disgust (…she optimistically muses)
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Allen Wirfs-Brock retweeted
Allen Wirfs-Brock@awbjs
14 Mar 2019
Replying to @RReverser
Maybe not a spec issue: From ECMA-404, 2nd edition, “The JSON Data Interchange Syntax"
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Are you an engineer or an entrepreneur? The Bag of Money Test:
Ward Cunningham@WardCunningham
11 Mar 2019
Understanding innovation in its more limited interpretation: found.ward.bay.wiki.org/bag-…
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Allen Wirfs-Brock retweeted
Allen Wirfs-Brock@awbjs
8 Mar 2019
Not just. I think I’m more of a “full (abstraction) tower” developer.
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Allen Wirfs-Brock retweeted
Allen Wirfs-Brock@awbjs
8 Mar 2019
I tried hard to get ST-like blocks with non-local returns into ES6. Technically could have worked and integrated with syntactic for/while/break/continue/etc but there were many conceptual footgun when used to build ST-style control abstractions.
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I've always enjoyed assembly language level coding. Does that mean I'm an "artisanal programmer"?
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Obscure CS history. TIL: Before there was jQuery there was JQuery. Something completely different. (From the days when some people where still trying to bring Smalltalk-style development to the rest of the world) cs.ubc.ca/labs/spl/projects/…
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Ecma prefers consensus, but: ecma-international.org/memen… says: Voting on any matter shall be by simple majority of Ecma TC members. It is recommended that in the course of its ordinary work the TC should not use voting unless it is impossible to make progress without a vote.
Domenic Denicola@domenic
6 Mar 2019
Sure, but anyone who pays $$$ to Ecma can veto advancement, and folks have promised to do so.
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I love this blog and its existence proof that starry-eyed innovation and entrepreneurship didn't originate in the 2nd half of the 20th century.
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