Hi Wolfgang,
Smalltalk, as an ambience, can be used
 for doing other activities than writing "programs"
 (aProgram, aComponent, or aModule).
When you compare Smalltalk with languages you are
 comparing syntax (the only thing comparable from
 a language perspective).
Newbies use to compare smalltalk from language
 perspective, or from OO way (through design,
 abstractions, patters) to the tools they used
 in the past.
Only with time, opportiunities of real use in production
 and contact with people that use smalltalk in another
 way (not simply like the best OOL); new ways of
 doing informatics emerges.
Smalltalk as a open system, let you do non-formal
 development (e.g. pass the limits imposed by
 formalization, reductionism & encapsulation).
As a non-formal device/medium, it is not the
 opposite of formal design; it is a convenient complement
 (the only one competitive complement to formal
 design used in software industry today)
best,
Ale.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Wolfgang Helbig" <helbig at Lehre.BA-Stuttgart.DE>
To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 9:02 AM
Subject: Re: new Smalltalk programmer's thoughts


> Hi Hans-Martin,
> you posed the question
> >The question is: do we want to let hardware characteristics dominate our
> >way of thinking?
>
> And the answer is no!
> And I deeply appreciate Smalltalk for the #// and #\\ operators, for
Integers
> that are unlimeted, and for things like garbage collection that no real
machine
> can achieve! Smalltalk leverages on being run by a virtual machine. And it
does
> very well so. Furthermore, it lets you adopt things to your likes much
easier
> than any other language I know. (I don't know Lisp) So, in this respect, I
> couldn't agree more with you.
>
> >collection, I want the first at index 1 and the fifth at index 5. When
> >I'm using Integers, I don't want to think about 16 vs 32 bits, signed vs
> >unsigned etc.
> >The argument about loop bounds is somewhat related. I've seen quite some
> >beginner's C code which did "for (i=0; i<=10; i++)" to address a
> >10-element array :-) Seasoned C programmers don't do that anymore, but
> >it tells me a bit about what is "natural" :-)
>
> And that is my point: Different challenges need different numbers for the
first
> index. When I am implementing a Gaussian algorithm to invert matrices, I'd
never
> use 0 as the first index. But whenever I am computing indexes, I'd never
use
> one as the first index. And this is not supported by BASIC and Smalltalk.
>
> Greetings,
> Wolfgang
> >
> >Cheers,
> >Hans-Martin
>
> --
> Weniger, aber besser.
>
>