How about Smalltalk-2000?

Warren Postma wpostma at ztr.com
Wed Feb 16 20:31:15 UTC 2000


> But "let's make Smalltalk look more like <some other
> language>" is not a step forward on either the pink or blue planes.

Smalltalk is not english like, meaning that many people have a hard time
parsing it, and can't figure out what it means. SO that means you have one
language your objects are implemented in, and "BASIC" for your users. I'm
just suggesting integrating both into the VM. You can go on and send ifTrue
messages to your booleans until the cows come home, and nobody would care.
But you don't want a few more globals "littering" up your tidy landscape? Oh
please.

The pink and blue planes are a nice bit of ST culture, but they're a perfect
example of how both planes of a ST buddha's state of higher consciousness
are asymtotic to the alternative realities that the other 99% of us working
stiff programmers must face.  Sure Smalltalk works for you the way it is, so
don't change it, and don't use the changes if someone else does. However, a
lot of other people don't use ST because it doesn't work for them. If you
can intersect the two worlds, you will benefit from a greater user-base for
Smalltalk, as will others.  Perl takes this to the Nth degree and has been
quite successful, though it's syntax is now wickedly cluttered.   

Features from other languages, like operator overloading, are not just
syntax sugar. They are a visual and mental algebra for millions of competent
intelligent programmers, some of whom are quite right to look askew at this
whole failed silver bullet called "OOP".  ST promised more than it ever
delivered. Some small percentage of ST users feel it succeeded, but for most
of us it appears about as commercially successful as the IBM PC Junior.  

But Smalltalk is far from dead, it's just in a tiny niche it needs to break
out of.  Secret weapon my @$$. Smalltalk is a lot more than a "Pure OOP"
langage. It's the only "Live code" environment I've ever seen. The "Pure
OOP" is incidental to me, whereas to you, it is perhaps electrifying. I look
at it and go "So what, big hairy deal."  So if both of us are going to use a
single language, a little compromise is in order.

Warren





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