Let me share some of my favourites not listed here, off the top of my head:
- Ian Piumarta’s “Open, Extensible Object Models” (https://www.piumarta.com/software/id-objmodel/objmodel2.pdf) is about creating the most minimal object-oriented metaobject system that allows the maximum amount of freedom for the programmer. It basically only defines a message send operation, everything else can be changed at runtime. The practical counterpart to the dense “Art of the Metaobject Protocol” book.
- John Ousterhout “Scripting: Higher-Level Programming for the 21st Century” (https://web.stanford.edu/~ouster/cgi-bin/papers/scripting.pd...) - not really a paper, but an article from the creator of Tcl about the dichotomy between systems programming languages and scripting languages. Obvious at first sight, the lessons therein have wide ramifications IMO. We always seek the perfect multi-paradigm language that can do anything at high performance with the most productivity, while perhaps it is best to have compiled, fast, clunky systems languages paired with ergonomic, flexible interpreted frontend. Often all you need is C+Tcl in the same app. A must-read for anyone writing yet another programming language.
- Niklaus Wirth's Project Oberon (https://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/ProjectOberon/) is the implementation of an entire computer system, from the high-level UI down to kernel, compiler, and a RISC-like CPU architecture. He wrote the seminal "plea for lean software" and actually walked the walk. A long lost art in the era of dependency hell and towering abstractions from mediocre coders.
AlphaGeekZulu•4h ago
1_08iu•4h ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMj-3S1tku0&list=PLAqhIrjkxb...
AlphaGeekZulu•4h ago