How about Smalltalk-2000?

Duane Maxwell dmaxwell at entrypoint.com
Wed Feb 16 20:28:08 UTC 2000


Bob Jarvis writes:
>I don't *want* a bunch of special "let's look more like C/Python/ALGOL"
>syntax rules, VM-supported Singleton objects, and/or other (pardon my
>bluntness) crap littering the landscape.  If something is truly an
>improvement, great.  But "let's make Smalltalk look more like <some other
>language>" is not a step forward on either the pink or blue planes.

Apparently this is a rather old problem - from the Jargon File:

----------------------------
"If you want <X>, you know where to find it."

There is a legend that Dennis Ritchie, inventor of C, once responded to
demands for features resembling those of what at the time was a much more
popular language by observing "If you want PL/I, you know where to find
it." Ever since, this has been hackish standard form for fending off
requests to alter a new design to mimic some older (and, by implication,
inferior and baroque) one. The case X = Pascal manifests semi-regularly on
Usenet's comp.lang.c newsgroup. Indeed, the case X = X has been reported in
discussions of graphics software (see X).
----------------------------








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