Info Only, Non -Technical Post

Mark Wai mwai at ibm.net
Wed Nov 11 23:06:47 UTC 1998


Warning:  This email contains no technical contents or merit.  Skip reading
it if you are looking for these.  My apology for wasting your bandwidth....

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Out of my usual curiousity on things that I have deep interests, I have
always wondering the driving force and the goals behind the Squeak project
at Disney.  I have seen quite a few messages here in the list asking: 'Why
we do Squeak?' or 'What kind of practical things we can do with Squeak' or
something similiar.  I don't recall seeing replies that are very specific.
While the potential of Squeak is probably unlimited, thinking about blue and
pink all the times are not easy to swallow, at least to me.

While reading the book 'Work in Progress' today, I find out some background
information on the Squeak project. In the section 'Cocooning and Connecting', 

- Our hope was that the project would turn out to be not just imaginative
and promising, but also practical and usable in the near term.

- Already Alan Kay (and his team) has helped to develop a new programming
language for our on-line initiative that takes a leap beyond Java, as well
as a new form of on-line entertainment for kids called E-toys, which can be
downloaded directly from the Internet.

- ...............

While these statements are not official and probably very limited in terms
of the real goals, nevertheless, it is good to know some of the near term goal.

Well, hopefully, some of us who don't have the luxuary to work at the Squeak
central or work full time on Squeak can also come with another
dimension/form of Squeaky ideas towards the the same technological ideal.

P.S.  To those of you who have read about Eisner's proposal for changing
professional ice-hockey rules about 2 years ago, you will probably agree
that he is quite a visionary (his proposal is totally out of whack and
ridiculous but - refreshing).  It is amazed how different his ideas (well, I
should add that if the proposal are originated by him) are to the rest of
the people who don't move forward...  Disney and Squeak seems to be a pretty
good fit.
--
Mark Wai
Wator Innovision
mailto: mwai at ibm.net or:[ mwai at frontiersa.com ] 
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