[Advocacy] Sun says object orientation has failed
Bill Schwab
BILLS at ANEST4.ANEST.UFL.EDU
Thu Jun 20 19:25:29 UTC 2002
Are we to conclude that Sun has finally deprecated their _entire_
class library? :) Sorry - couldn't resist.
My hunch is that Sun will next learn what Smalltakers learned a
long time ago: graphical programming tools have their limits.
Remember the "green haze"? I never experienced it first hand, but
I've heard horror stories.
I hope that Smalltalkers in general, and Squeakers in particular,
will see Sun's change in direction as justification to keep doing the
things that have gotten us this far. For Squeak, I'd like to see
some more support, and modules might be the enabler, for
mundane forms (typists like to tab between controls - sorry), modal
dialog boxes (to keep inexperienced or distracted users out of
trouble) and relational databases (to make customers happy, and
because sometimes they really are the best solution for storage).
A common complaint is that "Squeak looks funny". Actually, the
look has improved a lot, and I don't think users care all that much
anyway. However, Squeak does "feel funny", and users would care
about that.
Until the industry as a whole loosens its grip on static typing (and I
don't think it will), we can probably expect an endless chain of "ok,
let's rebuild everything THIS way now" solutions that won't last.
Squeak's position as an open and portable Smalltalk puts it in a
very unique position. Provide a stable platform for doing grunt
work, and anything else that it does is gravy - just my $0.02.
Bill
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254
Email: bills at anest4.anest.ufl.edu
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029
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