[squeak-dev] Survey: what do you do with Squeak, what do you *want* to do?
Stéphane Rollandin
lecteur at zogotounga.net
Thu Feb 22 09:57:17 UTC 2018
> What do you use Squeak for?
I use it for everything. I belong to the generation that grew up with
personal computing, and I believe Squeak is the pinnacle of personal
computing. It is fun, powerful, beautiful, intelligent.
Morphic provides a unique level of interactivity with graphical
representations.
I have been working with Squeak for the last 15 years or so.
I developed (and am still improving daily) a system for music
composition, http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/squeak/sqgeo.htm
.. and used it to write all pieces post-2003 in
http://stephanerollandin.bandcamp.com/
I also made a game, http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/saucers.htm
.. a package for functional programming,
http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/squeak/functionaltalk.htm
.. and a Lisp/Scheme implementation,
http://www.zogotounga.net/comp/squeak/lispkit.htm
> What does Squeak lack?
First of all, whatever Squeak lacks should not overshadow what Squeak
has. It is a mature system IMO. It is paramount not to improve it just
for the sake of improving it, at the risk of killing some of its current
balance between "serious" and "fun" (or between "corporate" and
"personal' if you wish) system.
Also, and somewhat related, not many people actually grok what makes
Squeak and Morphic awesome. And not many people routinely uses features
that are unique to Squeak, which may put them into danger.
For example, I regularly see people complaining that Morphic is a mess,
undocumented, ugly, unusable, etc. While they may have a point (notably
about documentation, and there are indeed messy parts), I think I can
safely say that nobody has used Morphic as much as I have for muO, and
it is just amazing. For all its wards, it is still a unique and deeply
satisfying way to deal with graphical interfaces. It is a jewel.
With that said, what Squeak lacks IMO is, off the top of my head:
- a good handling of fonts and text coding systems (I cannot write my
name in a string, as the accented é will get converted upon file-out, I
also did not find a way to work with music fonts).
- facilities for touch screen devices, and all events generated by
physical gestures on a phone (tilt, etc.)
- easy HTML/Javascript integration. It would be great if it was
straightforward to embed Squeak images in a web page (I know some
impressive work is already being done in that area, it is just not ready
yet)
> What things are too hard or annoying to do?
A behavior bugs me: when moving a Squeak image window in Windows, all
processes pause, including MIDI out. Not too good for games or live music.
> What would you like to be able to use Squeak for?
I would like to keep using it for music and games, and for musical games.
Stef
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