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wues

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Yes, the distinction between class and instance methods in an interface with + and - characters must be one of the most elegant solutions introduced in a programming language ever.

Seriously, I could never understand this claim of "elegance" of Objective C…

Weird Languages 5 years ago

In the case of Erlang the answer to your question about meaningful differences is: oh yes! I could list more, but there are two:

- support for concurrency. After tasting it you never will want to go back to techniques normally used in the languages you listed

- data immutability, which makes reading code so much easier.

No it wouldn't. Sending three or four transfers from mobile banking app is for sure faster than finding bank number, calling them, listening to the info that the conversation will be recorded, listening to the menu, then listening to music interrupted with "we will be with you shortly" etc. I guess I could send 20 transfers at least during this time.

They all may have excellent C compatibility, but this is not the point. The point is that without C compatibility C++ could be smaller and simpler, and yet still meeting the same goals and covering the same use cases. Objective C has Smalltalkish object system glued to C base. Fundamental C++ techniques like RAII not possible there. D has GC. C# runs in a VM. I would not call a language with any of those features very similar to C++.

OTOH if not for C compatibility we would not have this discussion, since we would most likely never heard of C++.

In "Thus Spoke Lem" - a several hundred pages interview with Lem - there is a chapter about Lem's likes and dislikes in literature. He is asked about books which influenced his thought and he mentions several of them, read when he was young. When asked about later influences he talks about GEB and Mind's I only. He says that again and again he sees in those books concepts similar to his own, but he is sure that Hofstadter reached them independently. I do not think that an English translation of Thus Spoke Lem exists.

Another connection between Hofstadter and Lem: in Le Ton Beau de Marot there is a chapter where Hofstadter discusses possible ways of translating How the World Was Saved from Cyberiad.