[squeak-dev] A Sad Day

karl ramberg karlramberg at gmail.com
Fri Aug 14 20:54:24 UTC 2020


Well said, Vanessa :-)

The complexity comes from people using Squeak and wanting to improve it in
many directions.
And managing code , graphics , user interface , faster virtual machine,
networking, security etc. are hard problems which add complexity.
And also the added accidental complexity on top of that.

It seems systems only are simple and elegant until people start using them.
One can see that as a good or bad thing.

Solution to the complexity problem will probably take a few generations to
solve...

Best,
Karl



On Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 9:42 PM Vanessa Freudenberg <vanessa at codefrau.net>
wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 2:31 AM Marcel Taeumel <marcel.taeumel at hpi.de>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Trygve,
>>
>> I apologize for any misunderstandings here. I am not an English native
>> speaker. It was not my intent do accuse you of lying.
>>
>> However, there is a difference between a bug report and an
>> unsubstantiated rant. I did read your entire post "A Sad Day" as the
>> latter. Whose mistake that was, I cannot tell now. Neutral, objective bug
>> reports would read different, I suppose.
>>
>
> It was neither a bug report nor an unsubstantiated rant. It was a
> criticism of the complexity of all current Smalltalks. The few examples of
> unexpected complexity in Squeak that Trygve chose to mention are not the
> actual issue. No need to feel personally attacked.
>
> Having worked with a beautifully tiny system like Smalltalk-78, or even
> early versions of Squeak, the complexity in modern Squeak is staggering.
>
> Smalltalk used to be a system that can be fully understood by a single
> person - truly a personal computing system. That is no longer the case.
>
> All the functionality we added over the years comes at the price of
> complexity (not to mention speed). It makes the system hard to understand.
> It makes it hard to see the design principles. We have not found a way to
> eliminate, or at least hide, any of the complexity we introduced.
>
> I don't think there is a "solution" for this within the current system. We
> have accepted the complexity, and now we have to live with it. And we have
> to accept that that alienates people who are looking for simplicity and
> elegance.
>
> I am sad to see Trygve leave, but I do understand. He didn't even owe us
> an explanation. Thank you, Trygve!
>
> All the best,
> Vanessa
>
>
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