nil or #nil?

R. A. Harmon harmonra at webname.com
Thu Sep 24 21:40:53 UTC 1998


At 09:40 AM 9/21/98 -0500, Tim Olson wrote:
[snip]
>raises the larger question of Pink plane vs. Blue plane.  Dan Ingalls 
>wrote about this "pull" between the Pink and Blue planes in October of 
>'97; here are some exerpts:
>
>----
>There are two strong forces at work in the Squeak team, which are often 
>in opposition.
[snip]
>These have most recently been 
>articulated in Alan's allusion to Toffler's metaphor of progress in the 
>pink (incremental improvement) plane and the blue (paradigm shift) plane.
>
>The forces in the pink plane have to do with making an ever-better 
>Smalltalk-80 system that can serve a wide spectrum of research and 
>academic needs, while leveraging off the large body of ST-80 
>documentation, existing code archives, and synergy with high-performance 
>industrial ST-80 systems.  In this plane Squeak's high level of 
>compatibility with the ST-80 language (and even with the MVC display 
>architecture) is a plus,
[snip]
>The forces in the blue plane have to do with a completely different 
>graphics model, evolution of the language model, and hopefully an even 
>simpler yet more powerful language kernel.
[snip]
>To best understand the "blue" pulls within the Squeak group, you need to 
>understand what we're after.  Our number one commitment is to an 
>exquisite personal comuputing environment.  Imagine a system as immediate 
>and tactile as a sketch pad, in which you can effortlessly mingle 
>writing, drawing, painting, and all of the structured leverage of 
>computer science.  Moverover imagine that every aspect of that system is 
>described in itself and equally amenable to examination and composition.  
>Perhaps this system also extends out over the internet, including and 
>leveraging off the work of others.  You get the idea -- it's the Holy 
>Grail of computer science.  All and everything.  So if some new approach 
>comes along that takes us closer to that ideal, but at the cost of a 
>break with ST-80 tradition, we will probably take the new approach.
>----
>
>So the stated goals of Squeak (from "Squeak Central's" viewpoint, at 
>least) do not include 100% compatibility with other Smalltalks; in the 
>future there will likely be larger divergences between Squeak and the 
>ANSI Smalltalk standard.
>
>
>To summarize from the "Pink Plane" and "Blue Plane" perspectives:
>
>The "Pink Plane" fix would be to adopt the ANSI standard in this case, 
>and have the reserved identifiers 'nil', 'true', and 'false' treated 
>specially in literal array creation.
>
>Some of the proposed "Blue Plane" fixes are:
[snip]

I am truly and cruelly torn between having a free, user-supported,
reasonably compliant Smalltalk to leverage off the tools all ready available
and a way to exchange code between dialects, and having an exquisite
personal computing environment that is absolutely required to be able to
handle the ocean of information available.

I love the vision of the future.  No, I lust in my heart for it!  But I get
this sinking feeling.

I started learning Smalltalk with ST/V DOS because it was (I think) US $50
and I could at a reasonable cost see what this object stuff was all about.
ST/V for Windows let me do real applications for (I think) US $250 -- then
poof, it's an orphan.

Most of the high powered Smalltalkers on comp.lang.smalltalk are working
with VisualWorks or Visual Age -- both of which I can't afford.  The folks
on the news group generously answer questions on SE, but over the last year
I think the SE questions and replies have dwindled.  Maybe the high powered
folks don't have SE readily to hand or maybe they haven't used it in a while
and don't as quickly respond.

VisualWorks NC is available, but -- no disrespect intended -- I just don't
feel in my gut that it is a reliable option long term.  VWNC is out there
now but is it just tactic for the moment.

I think Dolphin Smalltalk is terrific and looks very good as a long term option.

But If they don't succeed and Squeak goes off in to the future that can't be
move to another dialect, I'm left with two more orphans.

I feel like I'm chasing a mirage that keeps disappearing just as I'm about
to grasp it.

And I wonder what free or super-cheap Smalltalk the seed crop of new
Smalltalkers are going use to peek into object stuff, or get the rudimentary
skills by hacking up their own applications at home. 

Is there any way to build the future on top of a compatible Squeak
Smalltalk?  If the future vision fulfills its promise, I think (naive hope?)
other Smalltalk dialects will adopt it.

I want the future and I want portability.  Anybody have the email address of
the Language Fairie that handles the granting of diametrically opposed wishes?

--
Richard A. Harmon          "The only good zombie is a dead zombie"
harmonra at webname.com           E. G. McCarthy





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