---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 3:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Pharo changing the game
To: Pharo-project at lists.gforge.inria.fr, johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com




On Thu, Feb 11, 2010 at 3:26 PM, John M McIntosh <
johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com> wrote:

> Er, maybe I'll rant here since it' seems to me this the day for that.
> Perhaps flavoured a bit with
> Ralph's accidental post about cilantro.
>
> Should we not be talking about the Smalltalk 2010 ANSI proposal? Why the
> lock in to the
> Smalltalk ANSI INCITS 319-1998 (R2002) standard?
>

I haven't seen much movement since Bruce kicked it off (
http://openskills.blogspot.com/2007/10/ansi-smalltalk.html).  One of the
hurdles was the amount of money ANSI wanted for participation in the
standard.  I for one couldn't afford it and couldn't see how Cadence, my
then employer, would fund it.  I think that goes for most of the non-vendor
community.  See Clay Shirky's TED
presentation<http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html>on
institutions for why IMO ANSI is a non-starter.  ANSI is irrelevant;
it
meets it's own needs, not the needs of the Smalltalk community.  It can only
ever create an obsolete standard.   We need to design our own standard that
meets our needs.  If we can design a standard that is relevant the community
as a whole will increasingly adhere to it over time, and as that happens it
will become more useful, and, because it is defined by us, can evolve over
time, both in content and at a meta level in its standards-making processes.


> I think this fits into Stephane's comment about moving forward.
>

IMO, moving forward means finding new forms, not putting a new badge on the
same old corpse.  We need a sci-fi movie not a zombie movie ;)


> On 2010-02-11, at 1:51 PM, Lukas Renggli wrote:
>
>
> >> Now why don;t people want a better smalltalk?
> >
> > Sure, everybody wants a better Smalltalk.
> >
> > The ANSI standard does not make scripting impossible, it does not
> > forbid first class instance variables, it does not forbid a MOP or a
> > module system.
> >
> > The ANSI standard only talks about the basic Smalltalk syntax,
> > Collections, Magnitudes, Streams. That's it. I don't think it is
> > limiting in any way.
> >
> > Lukas
> >
> > --
> > Lukas Renggli
> > http://www.lukas-renggli.ch
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Pharo-project mailing list
> > Pharo-project at lists.gforge.inria.fr
> > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-project
>
> --
> ===========================================================================
> John M. McIntosh <johnmci at smalltalkconsulting.com>   Twitter:
>  squeaker68882
> Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd.  http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com
> ===========================================================================
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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