OOP: History, and challenges for the next fifty years (2013)
I quite enjoyed the paper and the many insights into object-oriented programming and its history.<p>Perhaps ironically, the part that I&#x27;m left wondering about is that &quot;inheritance can be explained using fixpoints of generators of higher-order functions&quot;. Now I&#x27;m curious to study what that means, how inheritance can be achieved by &quot;explicit parameterisation&quot; ¹.<p>Another point that made me think is this prediction:<p>&gt; In 1000 years object-oriented programming will no longer exist as we know it. This is either because our civilisation will have collapsed, or because it has not; in the latter case humans will no longer be engaged in any activity resembling programming, which will instead be something that computers do for themselves.<p>I wonder if it&#x27;s true that in the far future, programming will be done by computers. I suppose humans could be dictating in natural language, or moving and shaping programs in virtual reality, but I&#x27;d still consider that programming.<p>---<p>¹ The paper cited is: A Denotational Semantics of Inheritance - <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cs.utexas.edu&#x2F;~wcook&#x2F;papers&#x2F;thesis&#x2F;cook89.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cs.utexas.edu&#x2F;~wcook&#x2F;papers&#x2F;thesis&#x2F;cook89.pdf</a>