<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><br></div><div>@<i style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: medium; ">Paul DeBruicker</i></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>"In the meantime, there was the need for a new kind of object oriented language that could be programmed by young children. </div><div><br></div><div>I had been thinking about it, but was interrupted by a hallway bet about “how large would a description of the world’s most powerful computer language be?” </div><div>Having understood John McCarthy’s LISP by then, I said “Half a page!” They said “Prove it”. </div><div><br></div><div>Two weeks later I had this for the kernel of a new kind of object-based language, using some of John’s techniques, but put in directly executable form. </div><div>The kernel of Smalltalk. How small powerful “computer math” can be.</div><div><br></div><div>One month later my colleague Dan Ingalls had programmed this into one of our minicomputers and we suddenly</div><div>had a working, very high level, simple and powerful dynamic object language!"</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m2004002_center.pdf">http://www.vpri.org/pdf/m2004002_center.pdf</a></div><div><br></div><div>Written by Alan Kay and from VPRI. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Not surprisingly, Alan Kay had many objectives he wanted to achieve. Two are mentioned in the first sentence. The inciting </div><div>incident is a bet. In the fifth sentence he says "a new kind of object-based language" was created. </div><div><br></div><div>Note Bene: He does not say a new children's language was created. Under pressure from the bet, his priorities separated, and he created a </div><div>new OO language. The impetus to use it to assist children in education reasserted itself later. </div><div><br></div><div>The bet in question was not about a children's language. It was about the "most powerful computer language". He uses the word</div><div>"power" in this passage three times and word "child" once. </div><div><br></div><div>So there you have it, Paul. You just stood at the moment of creation. </div><div><br></div><div>Chris </div></body></html>