Hi Joshua,

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:49 AM, Joshua Gargus <schwa at fastmail.us> wrote:
> However, it seems to me that Smalltalkers are more motivated by Truth and Beauty than
> the average programmer (they're certainly not in it for the most plentiful
> jobs or the biggest money!).  If this is true, it follows that they're less
> likely to engage in Ugly Ugly website vandalism.

Smalltalkers are first of all more motivated by truth and beauty in
code, for given values of truth and beauty (**). That doesn't imply
anything else, let alone anything about behaviour in different
scenarios. Smalltalkers are people, too.

(**) Ask an experienced Haskell programmer about their notion of truth
and beauty in code. The story will be quite different.

In German, we have a saying that goes "Wo man singt, da lass dich
ruhig nieder, denn böse Menschen haben keine Lieder." (roughly
translated: "Where there's singing, it's safe to stay, because bad
people don't have songs."). This is a nice and naïve romantic
attitude.

I simply object to phrases like "Someone hacked my web site. That
couldn't have been a Smalltalker." because they are oversimplifying
and untruly glorifying at the same time.

Call me a pessimist. That's fine with me. :-)

Best,

Michael