+1.  Python was mentioned before, but I use a little python every day at 
work (and a lot on some days).  It's not a bad language as script languages 
go, but what does it have that is special really?  A flexible module system. 
  That is seriously the only thing I can think of.

And I am with you on Erlang as well.  I have been thinking about what it 
would take to make a Squeak package that does that.  In fact, looking at 
Squeaksource I think I saw some that might already be close. :)

I think making Commanche a viable web serving platform end-to-end would be a 
bin win.  A lot of synergy is there to be had for such systems.

And watching people get excited about Eclipse being able to run a little 
code and then change it "live" was a pretty vivid demo of what you are 
saying (I've been saying it a while myself) about languages trying to 
converge on smalltalk.

>From: Todd Blanchard <tblanchard at mac.com>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>Subject: Re: election details *PLEASE READ*
>Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:24:33 -0800
>
>
>On Feb 20, 2007, at 11:57 PM, Alan Lovejoy wrote:
>
>>Your comment made me think of the difference in attitude between  French
>>speakers and English Speakers.
>
>I don't find this analogy particularly compelling.  I don't think  people 
>are really trying to keep Smalltalk 'pure'.  I think they're  trying to 
>find ways to improve it.  Lots of things have been tried -  multiple 
>inheritance, prototype based vs class based models, access  control 
>wrappers, etc...  The cool thing is you can make it what you  want already. 
>  The trick is getting your nifty thing adopted into the  standard package.
>
>>Other programming languages have been stealing from Smalltalk for  
>>decades.
>>It's time we returned the favor.
>
>I'm in favor of that - but honestly, there hasn't been a lot worth  
>stealing from the mainstream.
>
>I have been looking at erlang recently and find some of the parallel/ 
>process/queue constructs interesting and would love to try to bring  some 
>of that over and try building a high performance web server  based on those 
>patterns.
>
>And then, of course, there are interesting technologies that have  nothing 
>to do with the language but would make a great addition to  the platform.  
>Like Supple http://www.cs.washington.edu/ai/supple/ -  a really nifty demo 
>I saw last year.
>
>So there is lots of great stuff to steal - but not much of it from  the 
>mainstream languages - they mostly seem to ape the last  generation and 
>then take a little lunge in the direction of Smalltalk.
>
>-Todd Blanchard
>

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