Alan Kay on forks
Brad Fuller
brad at sonaural.com
Wed Feb 9 18:22:54 UTC 2005
Avi Bryant wrote:
>Well, kinda. This is from
>http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=273
>
>"Q: What do you wish you had done differently in the Smalltalk era?
>
>A: I had the world's greatest group, and I should have made the
>world's two greatest groups. I didn't realize there are benefits to
>having real implementers and real users, and there are benefits to
>starting from scratch every few months. I hired finishers because I'm
>a good starter and a poor finisher, but it took me a long time to
>realize that I was interfering with them by trying to improve things."
>
>
_That_ is an important point to consider for Squeak.
I wonder how that can be accomplished virtually. It would seem to be
more of a project management problem than a technical issue.
My story:
I'm a user... at least a "user" from the ST perspective: one who
adds/modifies the existing image for usefulness for oneself.
I'm creating audio tools using Squeak (albeit, off-and-on inbetween
creating music to pay the bills).
I love it, but from a user's pov I wish things were a bit more usable.
Before you start telling me how usable Squeak really is, let me say that
for the most part I agree. However, from my perspective, UI tools are a
serious deficiency -- an area one would imagine naturally came bundled
with Squeak (see below for what I see as deficient.) I don't have one
itsy-bitsy problem with the concept of an improving image by the
community. I welcome it. But, I see so many messages discussing getting
rid of Morphic or improving it or....<insert the next idea here> that I
think maybe some fundamental problems are being overlooked.
The fact is that it's just hard for me to build an interface quickly to
try out audio ideas -- I end up experimenting in a trial-&-error loop
just to get basic widgets up. Sometimes, I just can't figure it out so I
end up re-inventing. I do care about how "cool" it looks -- but I'm more
concerned with the functionality behind the buttons (which seems to work
fine so far -- knock on wood).
Perhaps if better documentation was available to help me figure out what
is what. Not reams of docs -- just consistent, clear and thorough class
comments would be a big improvement. (ahem, deficiency)
I think it would be great if Tweak offered a better (and more
documented) way of accomplishing interfaces. BUT (that's a big but) what
I've been viewing is that the community likes to start great ideas, but
not always finish them (don't throw anything at me, please.) Heck, I
would be pleased (uh, very happy) if Morphic had complete documentation
and everything worked.
brad
another, somewhat OT, quote from the article that hit home:
"Once you have something that grows faster than education grows, you’re
always going to get a pop culture."
--
________________________________
Hear us online: www.Sonaural.com
Brad Fuller
(408) 799-6124
** Sonaural Audio Studios **
(408) 799-6123 West San Jose
(408) 799-6124 Cambrian
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