[Newbies] Machine gun the Balloon!

[David T. Lewis]

Kirk,

I like your ideas about what is a "developer" :-)

Thanks,
Dave

On Sat, May 07, 2016 at 12:11:19PM -0700, Kirk Fraser wrote:
> Dave,
> 
> You can dismiss it as my own personal mid-life crisis if you like.  But as
> you have offered your suggestions for reprogramming my personal point of
> view, let me offer some for yours.
> 
> > What about the 99.99% of people on the
> planet who are not application developers?
> 
> I see all people as application developers in the wetware of their own
> minds and hearts.  They all need but not all want help to program
> themselves to perfection which can unlock miracles that Jesus Christ's
> gospel speaks of.
> 
> Although I consider myself world class in Bible analysis, I find nobody
> cares. So as my time on the planet is limited, I'm using Squeak to build an
> Artificial Intelligence to encapsulate my level of understanding so
> children in the future can learn to meet and exceed my skills, which may
> help end world hunger, poverty, illiteracy,, crime, terrorism, and war.
> 
> I think part of that vision is what motivated Alan Kay to pour himself into
> trying to make the world's kids become programmers through EToys and others
> similarly with Scratch.
> 
> > To me that is what makes Squeak special. It is a tool for thinking and
> learning, and it is accessible at people with all sorts of interests and
> ideas. It is not just for programmers and application developers.
> 
> Often I must fight my imperfect dreams and pray for the perfect.  In this
> case I suggest analyzing your statement until you understand the oxymoron.
> I can write a one word text file that is accessible to all sorts of people
> but so what?  What matters is what Squeak can do for me and others who
> download it.  With the 2-3 button mouse preference error Squeak is no
> better than a screen saver image to the majority even if Squeak is
> otherwise so good it should have been the first computer language instead
> of Fortran and thousands of other languages should never have been
> invented.  In the 5 computer stores I frequent, I can't recall seeing a
> laptop with a 3 button mouse. You are asking me and 99.99% of the world to
> think so highly of Squeak even in its dysfunctional state that they worship
> it like the people did in the story of the emperor with no clothes.
> 
> > It's just that to me, it would be really discouraging if Squeak got
> turned into a "development tool", and disappointing if people did not see
> its role as something
> more than just another programming language.
> 
> If it is not a superior development tool then it is just another
> programming language but only when it works.  The lack of development in
> Smalltalk is why it is dying like human languages such as Esperanto or
> Latin.  See
> http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyIsSmalltalkDead
> If Squeak gets used in more viral applications then people will get more
> interested in learning it.
> 
> Kirk Fraser
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, May 7, 2016 at 10:38 AM, David T. Lewis <lewis at mail.msen.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, May 06, 2016 at 12:02:52PM -0700, Kirk Fraser wrote:
> > > Byte magazine which published the balloon concept for Smalltalk rising
> > > above the ivory tower of a lighthouse guiding the way in a sea of
> > computer
> > > languages is out of business. I think it is time for the Squeak balloon
> > to
> > > be grounded to connect with the reality of why computer languages exist -
> > > to make things easy for application developers.
> >
> > I hope that you do not truly believe this, that Squeak should exist for the
> > benefit of application developers. What about the 99.99% of people on the
> > planet who are not application developers?
> >
> > After all, it's not as if the application developers of the world aren't
> > already focusing enough attention on their own self-centered interests,
> > and it's not as though the world really needs yet another software
> > productivity tool.
> >
> > To me that is what makes Squeak special. It is a tool for thinking and
> > learning, and it is accessible at people with all sorts of interests
> > and ideas. It is not just for programmers and application developers.
> >
> > I certainly do not want to discourage anyone from writing useful
> > applications in Squeak, that would be great. It's just that to me, it
> > would be really discouraging if Squeak got turned into a "development
> > tool", and disappointing if people did not see its role as something
> > more than just another programming language.
> >
> > Just my personal POV.
> >
> > Dave
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Beginners mailing list
> > Beginners at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners
> >

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