An image is a lonely place

Jan Theodore Galkowski algebraist at salonmember.com
Thu Sep 30 01:47:28 UTC 1999


On Wed, 29 Sep 1999 17:18:32   Josh Flowers wrote:
>This has a bit of a Jini feel to it...
>
>The one big problem that I have with Java (and Squeak), is that  
>changes to the class libraries easily break the entire system.  This  
>is not a very big problem when your dealing with one VM and one set  
>of class libraries, but in a community setting, this is far to  
>fragile.  

[snip]

This is very interesting.  We're treading, IMO,
into Dostoyevskii territory here....

Eiffel, as an OOP/OOD formalism with strict
discipline tries to overcome this problem by
enforcing the precondition-postcondition type
of specifications on its objects and methods.
This certainly works, and has a virtue to it,
but it has, IMO, a kind of impedance mismatch
with the programming and user community.  

In particular, in my experience of 24 years in
software, the chance of getting users to 
formalize their wants even applying various
incentives, disincentives, etc, is negligible.
So, in that case, if one, as a software
technologist, wants to use this stuff, one
either takes on the entire responsibility of
translating their imprecise requirements to
precise ones or one needs to be very mean and
force such elucidation out of users.  Either
choice is not very much fun and is just plain
unrealistic.

The other problem with it, IMO, is that it is
based upon a fundamentally elitist view of 
software and software development.  IMO, the
thing which motivates the Web and Smalltalk and
especially Squeak is the idea that This is a 
Big Conversation, tolerant of imprecision, 
understanding that things will be imperfect,
yet in it for the long term payoff.  It is, IMO,
a lot more like playing music as part of an 
ensemble or orchestra than it is a reply of
Bourbaki's finished proofs.  In the context of
a music group, it's not that "mistakes" aren't
made, it's that they are bounded and -- in some
cases -- exploited towards a group end.

Yeah, I agree that classes can be fragile.
But, again IMO, the benefit to be achieved
by making all open for development outweighs
whatever risks are incurred.  We aren't 
deliverying refrigerators, at least not
yet.  I feel we should think of them as the
little things that go wrong in the opening
scenes of "Honey, I Shrunk Ourselves" or of
"Back to the Future".  Without risk and 
the possibility and encountering actual
failure there is no learning and no growth.

Sorry for rambling so long.
________________________________________________
Jan Theodore Galkowski  demiourgos at smalltalk.org
home.stny.rr.com/algebraist/         squeak.org/
www.smalltalk.org/



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