> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Kay [mailto:Alan.Kay at squeakland.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 10:19 AM
> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Subject: RE: I want to document but I need to learn first!


> So the people who have been very successful at etoys are those that 
> are comfortable with any limited palette they are given. This has to 
> be widened before we can declare etoys to be a real release.

Hi Alan,

	You know, this could also be interpreted as a feature rather than a limitation.  It's been my experience that constrained resource environments encourage "better" design.  In an environment where resources are abundant, there tends be little "competitive pressure" in the sense of survival-of-the-fittest type evolutionary pressure, so people may "get the job done", but not necessarily in an elegant or efficient manner.

	I don't think modern systems take up megabytes of memory and millions of lines of code so much because that's what is needed to get the job done as because we can and it's "easy".  It seems that this has actually led to less code re-use, lower quality software, and unmanageable quantities of it.  

	I don't imagine you need much convincing on this point, but I get the impression that this point of view is not widely held.  I just wanted to mention it so you will think as much about what to leave out as about what to add.

	I could site endless examples to support this idea: The Alto and the original 128k Mac come to mind.  I've often felt that the most amazing things are accomplished when resources are very limited and the people doing the work don't know any better.

				-Dean Swan