Curses, foiled again

For a long time I have been trying to come up with the “killer app” for my new programming paradigm. A few weeks ago I discovered it. As I thought it through, I started to panic, because I realized that it really was a killer app that didn’t need a new programming language. One could drop the fancy features and end-user programmability, and be left with something much simpler but with far greater impact: a replacement for email. Now that is a killer app. Should I shelve the research and do an open source project? Try to shoehorn my language in anyway? My head has been spinning. Well, Google just announced it today.

I am in shock. Going to take some time to digest this. Maybe it will turn out for the best: silence the siren call of commercialization, but still open up a niche for my language. Or maybe it is back to the drawing boards. Really only three weeks sunk at this point. What a trip.

What if Smalltalk were invented today?

To: Alan Kay
From: The Program Committee
Subject: FAIL

Dear Dr. Kay,

The program committee thanks you for the submission of your paper “Object Orientation: A New Paradigm of Programming”. Unfortunately your paper has been rejected. We had many fine submissions this year, but as you know we must accept no more than 15% of submissions to be considered a premier conference. The reviewers’ comments are attached below. Continue reading “What if Smalltalk were invented today?”

Draft Onward paper

At long last, I have posted a draft of the paper I am submitting to Onward this year. Still pretty rough, but it is due a week from Monday, so I am pushing it out now to get feedback in time. Coherent Reaction. All comments welcome. What are the hard parts to understand? What is the related work?

As you can see, I have changed the name from Juncture to Coherence.

Thanks – Jonathan

Update: Submitted! Revised version at above link. Thanks for everyone’s help.