Dr. Joe Armstrong, inventor of Erlang

After Dr. Armstrong’s death, his website was not well-maintained. Before it disappeared from the internet, the following quotes were listed in his favorite quotes page.

“Being really good at C++ is like being really good at using rocks to sharpen sticks.”

Thant Tessman

“When your hammer is C++, everything begins to look like a thumb.”

Steve Hoflich on compl.lang.c++

Dr. Joe Armstrong was a computer scientist and physicist, the inventor of Erlang, and a researcher at Ericsson Telecom

Freddie Mercury

Lead singer of the hit Rock n’ Roll band, Queen.

Paul Graham

Hackers and Painters is a book about programming by Paul Graham, cofounder of YCombinator, a tech startup accelerator. The book relates his experience using Lisp in the early days of the internet to create highly sophisticated yet maintainable web apps.

Discussions and Videos

Brian Will’s criticisms of Object-oriented Programming Paradigm

“With procedural code—particularly pure functional code—even when the division of responsibilities amongst the functions is sub-optimal, new functions and data types can generally be added without making the existing code messier. Object-oriented design, in contrast, much more often punishes programmers for not thinking ahead.”

Brian Will on Medium

“Because it’s so easy to put responsibilities in the wrong place, object-oriented code doesn’t tolerate incremental design very well. Yes, in theory, perfectly decomposed classes are easily supplemented with additional classes, but in practice, class decompositions are never perfect, and so every new class and method tends to add to the existing confusion and produces more work for later restructuring.”

Brian Will on Medium

Famous developer criticisms of OOP

Selections from Yegor256.com

“Objects bind functions and data structures together in indivisible units. I think this is a fundamental error since functions and data structures belong in totally different worlds.”

Why OO Sucks (2011), Dr. Joe Armstrong

“Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code.”

The Hundred Year Language (2003), Paul Graham

“The OO design concept initially proved valuable in the design of graphics systems, graphical user interfaces, and certain kinds of simulation. To the surprise and gradual disillusionment of many, it has proven difficult to demonstrate significant benefits of OO outside those areas.”

The Art of UNIX Programming (2005), Eric S. Raymond

Valve’s take on the gaming industry’s UX stagnation

“We’re frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space though, so we’re jumping in. Even basic input, the keyboard and mouse, haven’t really changed in any meaningful way over the years. There’s a real void in the marketplace, and opportunities to create compelling user experiences are being overlooked.”

from a job application for Valve Software, creators of Steam