[jshowa1]

My point is that earlier OOP documents did not implement generics.

When they were finally implemented in OOP, it superseded the original intentions of OOP.

The question is, are we now supposed to remove generics because they don't conform to the early literature of OOP?

Looks like the OOP edited his comment though, so my point is irrelevant.

[dragonwriter]

> My point is that earlier OOP documents did not implement generics.

> When they were finally implemented in OOP, it superseded the original intentions of OOP.

No, when they were implemented in static OOP, it brought static OOP closer to intentions of the original, dynamic, OOP, where generic-ness doesn't require parametric polymorphism.

[mehrdadn]

> My point is that earlier OOP documents did not implement generics.

So what? Early cars didn't have AC, therefore AC superceded cars? Or therefore I'm somehow arguing we should use AC instead of cars?

> The question is, are we now supposed to remove generics because they don't conform to the early literature of OOP?

Who ever claimed such a thing in the first place? It certainly wasn't me. If there is any question like this under discussion, it is whether OOP should should be removed because generics somehow superceded them (your idea), not the other way around. In either case the answer is clearly No because the idea is obviously ridiculous and not something anybody suggested.

> Looks like the OOP edited his comment though, so my point is irrelevant.

Not sure what this is referring to, but I haven't been able to agree with your comment since it was initially written.

[jshowa1]

So you don't really know what I was originally talking about yet you continue to act like you do? My point was in a response to the OP's implication that somehow the original OOP literature was perverted by misunderstandings and wrong implementations of the current generation, as if the original OOP documents were somehow "pure".

I pointed out that just because the literature is original doesn't mean it can't be superseded. I gave generics as an example that was later implemented in OOP languages and fail to see how implementing these perverted the original intentions.

I was then told that OOP intentions were originally meant to be dynamically typed and that the static typing of generics was meant to put it towards the original intentions of this dynamic structure (this is untrue because Alan Kay just didn't like static typing, but didn't make dynamic typing a requirement for OOP). Upon further research, the earliest OOP concepts were explained in the 1960's and the first OO language (Simula) was statically typed and a superset of ALGOL 60 which was a language made in 1960, with Simula following in 1965. Smalltalk came in at 1972 (around the time of generics) and is considered the definitive OOP language which is dynamically typed.

So its hard to say, without direct sources, what the original intentions of OOP were, but considering OOP appeared before the first languages that contained generics (i.e. 1970's), generics is an idea that superseded OOP.

Considering the utility of generics, its clear that later concepts that were added to OOP did not somehow perverse the original literature.

So we've established the following: 1) The earliest OOP language (Simula) was statically typed. 2) Generics came in after Simula 3) The original intention of OOP could probably be attributed to Alan Kay, who created Smalltalk, but it borrowed heavily from Simula. And while Alan Kay coined the term OOP, the idea was not created in a vacuum as OOP concepts predate Smalltalk.

Hopefully this provides some clarification. But my guess is people will continue to misinterpret what I meant.