So what did Alan Kay really mean by the term "object-oriented"?

Posted by Charlie Flowers on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by Charlie Flowers
Published on 2011-02-11T07:11:16Z Indexed on 2012/11/04 11:23 UTC
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Reportedly, Alan Kay is the inventor of the term "object oriented". And he is often quoted as having said that what we call OO today is not what he meant.

For example, I just found this on Google:

I made up the term 'object-oriented', and I can tell you I didn't have C++ in mind

-- Alan Kay, OOPSLA '97

I vaguely remember hearing something pretty insightful about what he did mean. Something along the lines of "message passing".

Do you know what he meant? Can you fill in more details of what he meant and how it differs from today's common OO? Please share some references if you have any.

Thanks.

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