How about Smalltalk-2000?
Stewart MacLean
stewart.maclean at nzhis.govt.nz
Thu Feb 17 03:06:37 UTC 2000
I second this!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ivan Tomek [mailto:ivan.tomek at acadiau.ca]
> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2000 9:22 AM
> To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Cc: recipient.list.not.shown; @cs.uiuc.edu
> Subject: RE: How about Smalltalk-2000?
>
>
> I agree completely. Although I appreciate all the innovative
> proposals,
> I have yet to see one that makes Smalltalk more expressive
> and flexible.
>
> Ivan
>
> Date forwarded: 16 Feb 2000 20:03:21 -0000
> From: "Jarvis, Robert P. \(Contingent\)"
> <Jarvisb at timken.com>
> To: "'squeak at cs.uiuc.edu'" <squeak at cs.uiuc.edu>
> Subject: RE: How about Smalltalk-2000?
> Date sent: Wed, 16 Feb 2000 15:06:20 -0500
> Forwarded by: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Send reply to: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
>
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Warren Postma [SMTP:wpostma at ztr.com]
> > > Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 11:57 AM
> > > To: 'Dan Ingalls'
> > > Subject: How about Smalltalk-2000?
> > >
> > > Voila, Smalltalk-2000, a dialect of Smalltalk-80 that acknowledges
> > > that Smalltalk has finally developed an alternative to the most
> > > unreadable part of Smalltalk-80 syntax.
> > >
> > What's *better* about this? Is grafting bits and pieces of Basic,
> > Python, Java, C, Fortran, COBOL, and/or <your favorite
> language here>
> > going to make Smalltalk "better"? Or is this simply pandering to
> > people whose vision of what a computer language "should"
> look like has
> > been formed by exposure to those other languages, and who don't care
> > to learn anything new?
> >
> > When I first started trying to learn Smalltalk, back around
> nine years
> > ago, I bought a copy of Smalltalk/V for Windows v1.0,
> loaded it one my
> > machine, started working my way through the tutorial, and I just
> > flat-out did not get it. At the time I had about 18 years of
> > experience with ALGOL-derived languages, and this Smalltalk stuff
> > was...well, "different". It was quite obvious to me that Smalltalk
> > was all wrong, totally illegible, screwed up, and *it just
> didn't look
> > right*. Now, C - C was perfect. Wonderful. Not only
> that, I knew it
> > really well. Ditto C++, although there were lots of quirky little
> > bits in there I didn't (and still don't, for that matter) grok - but
> > no matter. It was perfect. (Of course, ten years before *that* I
> > thought C was screwed up - any language that used *symbols* like '{'
> > instead of good old words like 'BEGIN', and which used <retch!>
> > *lower-case letters* in identifiers, wasn't worth *MY* time :-). I
> > iterated through the cycle of "I want to learn Smalltalk -
> this stuff
> > looks yucky - it's obviously screwed up - to h*ll with it" several
> > times until I managed to clear my "previously-conceived notions"
> > stack, and actually sat down and figured out the how's and why's of
> > Smalltalk. If I recall correctly I finally had my "road to
> Damascus"
> > experience when I realized that the language designers
> weren't simply
> > being perverse when they made the "normal" "if <condition> then
> > <statement> else <statement>" logic into "<boolean> ifTrue: <block>
> > ifFalse: <block>" - it's this way because #ifTrue:ifFalse:
> is, by God,
> > a *message* sent to a Boolean which evaluates the correct block
> > depending on *which* Boolean (true or false) receives the message.
> > The receiving Boolean knows *which* block to evaluate simply because
> > it "knows" (by existence) which Boolean it is, and has the proper
> > logic written in to it. That was, I think, the most electrifying
> > experience I'd had in computing since I figured out, when I was
> > sixteen, that computers weren't half as complicated as I'd
> been told,
> > and that I could actually understand what was going on.
> >
> > OK, count me among the pro-Smalltalk "don't change a hair for me/Not
> > if you care for me" crowd. I find the internal consistency of
> > Smalltalk wonderful. I don't *want* a bunch of special "let's look
> > more like C/Python/ALGOL" syntax rules, VM-supported Singleton
> > objects, and/or other (pardon my bluntness) crap littering the
> > landscape. If something is truly an improvement, great. But "let's
> > make Smalltalk look more like <some other language>" is not a step
> > forward on either the pink or blue planes.
> >
> > Bob Jarvis
> > Compuware @ Timken
> >
>
>
>
> Dr. Ivan Tomek,
> Jodrey School of Computer Science
> Acadia University
> Nova Scotia, Canada
> fax: (902) 585-1067
> voice: (902) 585-1467
> e-mail: ivan.tomek at acadiau.ca
>
More information about the Squeak-dev
mailing list
|