[dimal]

> The purpose of the Smalltalk project is to provide computer support for the creative spirit in everyone.

I have the sense that Bjarne Stroustrup and James Gosling were unaware of this document, or if they were, disagreed with it. It’s a shame they looked more to Simula for inspiration.

Back in the day, programming in Java, I always had the distinct feeling that the compiler was more important than me. Too much of my time was not spent creating. It was spent making the compiler happy. I’ve wondered what would have happened if Sun had Gosling build the JVM and someone else design the language (Bill Joy?). Would we have gotten a language that was designed for humans?

[znpy]

> Too much of my time was not spent creating. It was spent making the compiler happy.

I’ve seen this happen to some colleagues, and it has happened to me as well, not only with java.

It’s really… a skill issue. In most cases the user hadn’t read the documentation well if at all, or is trying to write in language X while thinking in language Y. It’s really your issue if you’re misusing the language and the compiler.

[mst]

Bear in mind that the Java design was only half done when it got shipped - I would love to see what both Java and JavaScript would have been if their creators had been given the time to actually finish their respective designs.

[mlajtos]

For JavaScript it is ES1995.

https://github.com/mlajtos/es1995