[squeak-dev] smalltalk evolution

info at tomsik.cz info at tomsik.cz
Tue May 31 13:05:23 UTC 2011


What's current state of squeak evolution?

I do get the idea of squeak as independent-smalltalk,
which CAN evolve without being fully compatible with the rest of st world
(which is IMHO the only way to deliver better language)

I've read few dozens of interesting proposals in here
(like prototypes and dropping array literals)

And while both being pretty interesting I would really like
to see smalltalk with [1 . 2 . 3] asArray syntax instead of ugly
and IMHO useless #(1 2 3)

Syntax should be further discussed, yes, at least because [1, 2, 3]
looks much better, but what's the chance of adopting something like this?

What's the chance of saying: "guys, we made mistake, #(1 2 3) have really
no advantage over blocks (except of performance), so let's drop it, let's
simplify the language, let's make it even easier to learn for newcomers."

Is something like this "part of plan"? Or is really the "make a new fork if
you consider it useful" the only way to go?

Because writing meta-program for transforming existing code shouldn't be
so hard. Also "dropping" something could be just part of "changelog", even  
with
appropriate convertor for legacy code. And I doubt that new fork could  
make it
through without massive marketing. Even squeak is poorly known.

Please do not take it as offense, ST is one of best languages I've ever  
encountered,
but every language can be even better, and we should try.



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