Hi Klaus -

> - Smalltalk is object-orientation(OO), plain and simple, with a minimum of
> fuzz and a minimum of syntactic overhead.

True.

> OO means:
>    - a conciese object-hierarchy;
>    - classes, snippets of code and as much of the operating system and the
> machine as possible are objects too;
>    - a support for concepts such as MVC and other programming paradigms
> which are intellectual tools to cope with complexity.

False. OO means objects exchanging messages. Classes are no requirement for
OO, neither are hierarchy of any sort, nor MVC or other tool support (there
are plenty of OO systems which have neither).

> Smalltalk also means: "direct manipulation"(DM), e.g. represent an
> abstract entity so that the user can directly touch it. DM is a direct
> consequence of Smalltalk's OO-concept, it even reflects the
> postfix-notation of operations in the code.

That is true for "Smalltalk the system" not "Smalltalk the language" though
one might say that compared for example "Squeak the system" (incl. Morphic)
the abilities of Smalltalk are rather limited.

> - Squeak is based on Smalltalk and first of all illustrates Smalltalk's
> principles. So the question if Squeak could have been written in another
> language is largely irrelevant: Squeak breathes the Smalltalk-concepts of
> OO out of every user-interaction.

Unfortunately that is true.

> - Squeak allows to play with _additional_ concepts (that's the point where
> my difficulties regarding Squeak come to surface):

True.

> - There are *Morphs*. Morphs may be a replacement for MVC. MVC tends to be
> rather bureaucratic; who really knows what a "controller" is, anyway.
> ??? May be Morphs carry restriction with them, too and I finally don't
> want to completely mix up the core-solution of a problem with it's
> graphical representation.

True from my POV but others may have different views.

> - There are *EToys*. Let's try a costume-player-paradigm and see if we get
> more interaction, more fun, more DM than with MVC.
> ??? But is this idiom really as universally applyable as MVC? Squeak's
> players are good to move Morphs, perferably Sketches, around and watch out
> for different colors. Don't I need additional kind of players?

The player costume paradigm is indeed more universally applicable than
either MVC or Morphic (as can be seen in Tweak).

> - In addition to the costume-player-paradigm EToys offer a classless
> approach to OO-Programming: instead of subclassing a class you copy an
> object to modify it's behaviour.
> ??? How can I keep an overview about the different objects and their
> behaviours in a complex system? How do I find an object which is best
> suited to be transformed to adhere to a new task.

It's true that in eToys we don't use classes but that is no requirement -
there are classes in Tweak but again you may choose not to use them.

Cheers,
  - Andreas