[squeak-dev] Re: offtopic: Hydra's name (was "The Primitive: I am not a number- I am a named prim! ")

Joshua Gargus schwa at fastmail.us
Thu Jul 3 15:38:55 UTC 2008


On Jul 3, 2008, at 3:39 AM, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

>
> Am 03.07.2008 um 03:14 schrieb Michael van der Gulik:
>
>> On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Craig Latta <craig at netjam.org>  
>> wrote:
>>
>> > I don't share your point here. A name is quite relevant to  
>> computing:
>> > if we going to talk with computers then to understand each other we
>> > need something in common - a language. Small language, which we can
>> > understand both and talk on it :)
>> >
>> > And that's the most why i like smalltalk - it is small. It is
>> > inherently easy to learn and talk on it. Maybe there other  
>> language(s)
>> > which would make programmer's life as easy as smalltalk does. But i
>> > didn't met them yet in my life.
>>
>>    That's all true, but it also indicates to me that you're not  
>> familiar with the original meaning of the word "smalltalk" in  
>> English. :)  It has strongly negative baggage.
>>
>>
>> It does? First time I heard; I always thought it was an important  
>> social skill: http://howto.lifehack.org/wiki/Small_Talk
>
> Hehe - but it's the very definition of geeks/nerds to lack "social  
> skills", they have a hard time doing small talk, they feel chatting  
> about irrelevant things is a waste of time. Hence the word has a  
> negative taste in these circles. And the percentage of them among  
> computer professional is higher than average.
>
> Even amongst Squeakers the percentage of people lovingly decorating  
> their images, cuddling it with updates and patches over years is  
> dwindling. The "real programmers" who just load packages to get work  
> done in "throw-away" images are in the majority now.

That's an interesting observation; I hadn't thought of it.  I've  
definitely moved into the "real programmers" camp; I used to have an  
image that was basically a multimedia concept-map (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_map 
).  Today I have a very slightly customized image that I clone  
throwaway copies from.  A big part of the problem was my inability to  
migrate my content into a newer Squeak version.

(as an aside, I still have hopes that Sophie could step into that role  
for me, but it currently feels too heavyweight... it's more suited for  
"real multimedia authoring" than for supporting cognitive processes in  
real-time)

I wonder if there is any causal link between the trend toward  
throwaway images, and the larger societal trend toward more disposable  
objects in general (thinking of the free inkjet printers used as a  
loss-leader for expensive ink sales... ugh!)

Cheers,
Josh


>
>
> - Bert -
>
>
>




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