"Alan Kay" wrote:
"... it really bothers me that so many people on this list are satisfied with Smalltalk-80 (Yikes!) But that's another soapbox."
Dear Seasoned Squeakers,
I have followed this list for a while and I have a feeling that Alan Kay is not particularly fond of Smalltalk-80.
I've been wondering why or maybe I got it wrong.
Your thought is very much appreciated.
I really hope if Alan is not too busy we will be able to hear it straight from the Dragon's mouth. ;-)
Cheers,
PhiHo
Hi --
I would gently suggest you are missing the points here.
You wrote at the end:
As said Garrison Keillor: "I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it."
I'm sure the irony was unintended.
The reality is that we need to use every possible route to try to get content of a high level and learnability to children everywhere. If most of the computer world does not like to use Smalltalk (this seems to be reality) we shouldn't pout and stamp our feet about it, but try to make examples that will help lift people's perception of what is possible.
If the Python folks want "Programming for everyone" and we can get them to see that there are some important things that need to be done to make the experience what it should be for children, then we should help them. Sure, I'd love to see them understand more about Smalltalk, but it is the psychology of that culture (and large parts of the Smalltalk culture, and most programming cultures) for computer folks to want to come up with their own ideas and solutions. E.g. it really bothers me that so many people on this list are satisfied with Smalltalk-80 (Yikes!) But that's another soapbox.
This is why computing is not a real scientific field, but much more like a pop culture (and sometimes like psychopathic children tearing wings off flies). If parts of the pop culture get interested in bigger problems (and they are and are being forced by circumstances to) then we can and should help them invent rounder wheels.
You are complaining about the irrationality of human beings. If they were rational, then we wouldn't need to worry about education, and there wouldn't have been a 3rd world in the 21st century. Most people's imaginations are so undeveloped as to be essentially non-existent. This is why we had to build more than a 1000 Altos, dozens of Ethernets and laser printers before anyone, let alone Xerox was even willing to concede that personal computing was a topic. As Butler Lampson as remarked "One of the things that made this easier than it could have been was that no one in the world was doing personal computing in the early 70s except for PARC. We had the entire field to ourselves, and thus could take our time to choose the riches paths we could imagine."
What's needed for this effort more than any other thing are compelling examples that can be used as prototypes for many kinds of home grown content. Part of "compelling" is the sense that the local groups can really feel in control of their software experience. Not terribly un-rational actually. It would be more rational if they were willing to learn Smalltalk, but so what if they don't want to. The Internet is the real key here, and the web part has been terribly botched. But I think the good content is going to look more like Etoys than either Smalltalk or Python or Ruby, so who cares about which religon is used?
Cheers,
Alan
At 09:03 AM 4/22/2006, Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
Really? Eventually children suffering from anemia will die. Those day, each 5 second a kid (bellow 10) die because of mal-nutrition. Since the begining of this thread more than 34000 kids die for such reason, I can't agree the effect is the same.
I just really feel unconfortable about plan, in the name of kids in developing countries, related to spend resources just to re-develop existing stuff. You know that Smalltalk and its environment are far superior to Python, so I cannot understand you stand "kid first" and at the same time your position about spending resources re-developping a graphical environment with an inferior vehicule. It is just non-sense. It will make more sense to re-developped more advanced language&environment on top of Smalltalk/Squeak. Was it not your initial plan?
As said Garrison Keillor: "I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it."
Hilaire
Alan Kay a écrit :
We have television instead of anemia, but it has a similar effect ...
Cheers,
Alan
At 07:06 AM 4/22/2006, Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
Alan Kay a écrit :
Yes, if only the world -- especially computer people -- were even halfway rational and interesting in learning ... but this is one of
the
main goals of education (= enlightenment, etc.), and this is why
global
education for everyone has been my main interest over the years.
As Seymour once said, "I wish the US was still a developing
country!").
We could say that about Europe also....
Hum, not sure to understand. In developping country, one related
problem
to education is to avoid children suffer from anemia, which make them unable to concentrate on anything.
Hilaire
----------
I see ST-80 as a little piece of rock (micro island) over the surface of the allways changing Squeak waters. Even if you know how to swim very well, sometimes you will want to grasp for a while on it. If agitation of change becomes too chaotic, not even your best swimming skills can save you. I'm waiting to see a continent somtime, a firm big space where things can evolve putting their feets on it. For now the little rock it's a must.
Cheers,
Sebatian
-----Mensaje original----- De: squeak-dev-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org] En nombre de SmallSqueak Enviado el: Martes, 16 de Mayo de 2006 06:24 Para: squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org Asunto: YASoB (was Re: some news)
"Alan Kay" wrote:
"... it really bothers me that so many people on this list are satisfied with Smalltalk-80 (Yikes!) But that's another soapbox."
Dear Seasoned Squeakers,
I have followed this list for a while and I have a feeling that Alan Kay is not particularly fond of Smalltalk-80.
I've been wondering why or maybe I got it wrong.
Your thought is very much appreciated.
I really hope if Alan is not too busy we will be able to hear it straight from the Dragon's mouth. ;-)
Cheers,
PhiHo
Hi --
I would gently suggest you are missing the points here.
You wrote at the end:
As said Garrison Keillor: "I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it."
I'm sure the irony was unintended.
The reality is that we need to use every possible route to try to get content of a high level and learnability to children everywhere. If most of the computer world does not like to use Smalltalk (this seems to be reality) we shouldn't pout and stamp our feet about it, but try to make examples that will help lift people's perception of what is possible.
If the Python folks want "Programming for everyone" and we can get them to see that there are some important things that need to be done to make the experience what it should be for children, then we should help them. Sure, I'd love to see them understand more about Smalltalk, but it is the psychology of that culture (and large parts of the Smalltalk culture, and most programming cultures) for computer folks to want to come up with their own ideas and solutions. E.g. it really bothers me that so many people on this list are satisfied with Smalltalk-80 (Yikes!) But that's another soapbox.
This is why computing is not a real scientific field, but much more like a pop culture (and sometimes like psychopathic children tearing wings off flies). If parts of the pop culture get interested in bigger problems (and they are and are being forced by circumstances to) then we can and should help them invent rounder wheels.
You are complaining about the irrationality of human beings. If they were rational, then we wouldn't need to worry about education, and there wouldn't have been a 3rd world in the 21st century. Most people's imaginations are so undeveloped as to be essentially non-existent. This is why we had to build more than a 1000 Altos, dozens of Ethernets and laser printers before anyone, let alone Xerox was even willing to concede that personal computing was a topic. As Butler Lampson as remarked "One of the things that made this easier than it could have been was that no one in the world was doing personal computing in the early 70s except for PARC. We had the entire field to ourselves, and thus could take our time to choose the riches paths we could imagine."
What's needed for this effort more than any other thing are compelling examples that can be used as prototypes for many kinds of home grown content. Part of "compelling" is the sense that the local groups can really feel in control of their software experience. Not terribly un-rational actually. It would be more rational if they were willing to learn Smalltalk, but so what if they don't want to. The Internet is the real key here, and the web part has been terribly botched. But I think the good content is going to look more like Etoys than either Smalltalk or Python or Ruby, so who cares about which religon is used?
Cheers,
Alan
At 09:03 AM 4/22/2006, Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
Really? Eventually children suffering from anemia will die.
Those day,
each 5 second a kid (bellow 10) die because of
mal-nutrition. Since the
begining of this thread more than 34000 kids die for such reason, I can't agree the effect is the same.
I just really feel unconfortable about plan, in the name of kids in developing countries, related to spend resources just to re-develop existing stuff. You know that Smalltalk and its environment are far superior
to Python,
so I cannot understand you stand "kid first" and at the same
time your
position about spending resources re-developping a graphical
environment
with an inferior vehicule. It is just non-sense. It will
make more sense
to re-developped more advanced language&environment on top of Smalltalk/Squeak. Was it not your initial plan?
As said Garrison Keillor: "I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it."
Hilaire
Alan Kay a écrit :
We have television instead of anemia, but it has a
similar effect ...
Cheers,
Alan
At 07:06 AM 4/22/2006, Hilaire Fernandes wrote:
Alan Kay a écrit :
Yes, if only the world -- especially computer people
-- were even
halfway rational and interesting in learning ... but
this is one of the
main goals of education (= enlightenment, etc.), and
this is why global
education for everyone has been my main interest over
the years.
As Seymour once said, "I wish the US was still a developing
country!").
We could say that about Europe also....
Hum, not sure to understand. In developping country, one related
problem
to education is to avoid children suffer from anemia,
which make them
unable to concentrate on anything.
Hilaire
Hello,
this might be a stupid question but where does the "new" class method come from for object instantiation because I could find it neither in Object nor in ProtoObject. I just wanted to find out where "initialize" is called and what else might be done at object creation but now I'm completely baffled.
Cheers, Torsten
Hi Torsten,
on Tue, 16 May 2006 19:32:40 +0200, you moehl@akaflieg.extern.tu-berlin.de wrote:
Hello,
this might be a stupid question but where does the "new" class method come from for object instantiation because I could find it neither in Object nor in ProtoObject.
No, this is not a stupid question.
I just wanted to find out where "initialize" is called and what else might be done at object creation but now I'm completely baffled.
In pre-Traits images this can bee seen with (Object class lookupSelector: #new) who, nowadays this can be seen with (Object class lookupSelector: #new) methodClass -> (Object class lookupSelector: #new) selector.
/Klaus
Cheers, Torsten
Thanks to everyone for the fast and complete answer.
Torsten
On 5/16/06, Torsten Sadowski moehl@akaflieg.extern.tu-berlin.de wrote:
this might be a stupid question but where does the "new" class method come from for object instantiation because I could find it neither in Object nor in ProtoObject.
Mysterious, isn't it? But you can see how it happens if you select the text "Object new" in a Workspace and choose "debug it" yellow-button menu.
The trick is that Object class is an instance of Class, which inherits from Behavior. So you're seeing Class(Behavior)>>new.
Hope this helps!
--Tom Phoenix
Torsten Sadowski wrote:
Hello,
this might be a stupid question but where does the "new" class method come from for object instantiation because I could find it neither in Object nor in ProtoObject. I just wanted to find out where "initialize" is called and what else might be done at object creation but now I'm completely baffled.
All class objects inherit from Class, ClassDescription, Behavior.
So if you inspect "String class withAllSuperclasses" you'll find the complete inheritance chain.
Behavior is where the #new method is implemented. This class basically defines the low-level stuff that's needed to describe and create instances. ClassDescription, Class and Metaclass add stuff to organize classes and methods, and to create the metaclass system of Smalltalk.
Cheers, Hans-Martin
You can investigate this in a couple of ways. First of all you could open a Method Finder or Message Names and search for all implementors of 'new'. However there's quite a lot of them. One thing you will notice however is that pretty much every implementation is on the class side. This should clue you in to the fact that in general you are sending the 'new' message to a Class object, in other words an instance of the class 'Class'.
Find Class in a browser and then choose 'Browse Protocol' from the context menu from the pane that lists the class names. Looking through the categories you will find 'instance creation' and selecting that gives you a list including 'new (Behavior)' The name in parentheses is the class on which this method is defined and selecting this in the list gives you the implementation.
Ken
On Tue, 2006-05-16 at 19:32 +0200, Torsten Sadowski wrote:
Hello,
this might be a stupid question but where does the "new" class method come from for object instantiation because I could find it neither in Object nor in ProtoObject. I just wanted to find out where "initialize" is called and what else might be done at object creation but now I'm completely baffled.
Cheers, Torsten
PhiHo,
"Alan Kay" wrote:
"... it really bothers me that so many people on this list are satisfied with Smalltalk-80 (Yikes!) But that's another soapbox."
Dear Seasoned Squeakers,
I have followed this list for a while and I have a feeling that Alan Kay is not particularly fond of Smalltalk-80.
I've been wondering why or maybe I got it wrong.
Your thought is very much appreciated.
I really hope if Alan is not too busy we will be able to hear it straight from the Dragon's mouth. ;-)
Rather than speaking for Alan, I will just quote two paragraphs from his "Early History of Smalltalk" (there is a link to a PDF version in Stef's Free Books page and there is a html version with some missing pictures at http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html):
------- I will try to show where most of the influences came from and how they were transformed in the magnetic field formed by the new personal computing metaphor. It was the attitudes as well as the great ideas of the pioneers that helped Smalltalk get invented. Many of the people I admired most at this time--such as Ivan Sutherland, Marvin Minsky, Seymour Papert, Gordon Moore, Bob Barton, Dave Evans, Butler Lampson, Jerome Bruner, and others--seemed to have a splendid sense that their creations, though wonderful by relative standards, were not near to the absolute thresholds that had to be crossed. Small minds try to form religions, the great ones just want better routes up the mountain. Where Newton said he saw further by standing on the shoulders of giants, computer scientists all too often stand on each other's toes. Myopia is still a problem where there are giants' shoulders to stand on--"outsight" is better than insight--but it can be minimized by using glasses whose lenses are highly sensitive to esthetics and criticism. -------
and
------- New ideas go through stages of acceptance, both from within and without.
From within, the sequence moves from "barely seeing" a pattern several
times, then noting it but not perceiving its "cosmic" significance, then using it operationally in several areas, then comes a "grand rotation" in which the pattern becomes the center of a new way of thinking, and finally, it turns into the same kind of inflexible religion that it originally broke away from. From without, as Schopenhauer noted, the new idea is first denounced as the work of the insane, in a few years it is considered obvious and mundane, and finally the original denouncers will claim to have invented it. -------
My comment on this is that Smalltalk-80 was indeed wonderful by relative standards, but it shouldn't become a religion that keeps us from inventing something better. Though this isn't nearly as sad as people who keep insisting on creating things that are worse while the public assumes it is automatically better than something "old" like Smalltalk (what C. S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery").
--Jecel
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Ken Causey -
Klaus D. Witzel -
Sebastián Sastre -
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Tom Phoenix -
Torsten Sadowski