Imagine how much difficulty professional programmers had with objects 
before they were invented!

I don't think it's a very good idea to extrapolate about the future 
of computing or what people will be able to understand by looking at 
what today's professionals are struggling with. If you look at the 
last 30 years, quite a bit of the stuff that was invented for 
children (and that children could indeed learn) has gradually (and 
somewhat grudgingly) been adopted by the experts. (I.e. great fluency 
in something can be a terrible barrier to finding and doing in easier 
ways.)

Cheers,

Alan

-------


At 6:31 PM -0700 10/29/01, Roger Vossler wrote:
>Hi,
>
>Well, I've read the 246 messages that I collected during the
>Great Modularity Debate (GMD) in addition to the info on various
>Swikis for ModSqueak/Ginsu (Joseph Pelrine and Stephane Ducasse),
>Oasis (Les Tyrrell), and Environments (Dan Ingalls and Henrik
>Gedenryd). And, I have probably missed a few things along the way.
>
>As far as I can tell, Dan Ingalls wants to "distribute active
>Squeak content as projects on the Internet" which leads to
>"modularity of projects" which in turn leads to a "component
>architecture" for Squeak. Correct?
>
>Other folks have noted the lack of any crisp definitions or
>consensus for terms like "project", "package", "module", "creation",
>or "component", much less terms like "component architecture",
>"component framework", or "component backplanes". Clemens Szyperski
>discusses many of these concepts at length in his book on Component
>Software, but I'm having a hard time correlating Szyperski's book
>with concepts and ideas discussed in the GMD.
>
>Apparently, the general plan is to schlepp along and figure all
>of this out as we go. Oey veh!
>
>As engineers, scientists, and programmers, we tend to view
>the world in terms of "projects". We are trained and educated in
>this manner. In fact, some real engineers live their entire lives
>as a string of interesting projects. <grin> Although I'm a
>computer engineer, I usually don't think in terms of projects.
>
>Whenever I want to do something, I usually head off the the
>library, bookstore, or my basement bookcases, collect some books,
>and spread them out on my workspace which also includes pens,
>pencils, piles of papers, stickies, notepads, a computer,
>some hot tea, and a little music. While I work on each small task
>sequentially, I'm usually working upon a lot of different things
>at once. Sometimes, I even work off the coffee table in the living
>room or a lawn table on the deck in the back yard.
>
>Books are my basic unit of information, knowledge, wisdom, and
>understanding. Most books typically consist of a title, table of
>contents, preface, introduction, a string of chapters, notes, and
>an index all bound between two hard (or soft) covers. A book can
>consist of several volumes. Sometimes books are divided into parts
>or sections. But basically, books are made up of a string of
>chapters. Books are collected into respositories called libraries
>where they are classified according to some rigorous scheme so
>mere mortals can easily find them. Squeak "projects" in Squeak 3.0
>seem close to what I want in a book. There is even a construct
>called a BookMorph.
>
>So, why on earth would I want to modularize a book? How does
>one modularize "Gone With The Wind", the Bible, "Lord Of The Rings"
>or the Iliad? Why would somebody want to do so? How would one do
>it even if they could?
>
>I can just see myself going to a library to rummage around in
>bins full of "chapters" (modules?), trying to collect enough of
>these pieces that might help me with my work.
>
>I thought that the primary purpose of Squeak was to create
>dynamic books that would reside in a hardware device called a
>DynaBook which could reach through to the Internet in order to
>access huge libraries of dynamic books all over the world. Instead,
>it sounds like folks are creating components for building projects
>that reside in a hardware device called a DynaProject. IMHO, a
>DynaBook and a DynaProject are not the same critter. No, not
>at all. Please, help me out here.
>
>Cheers, Roger.....
>
>PS: I also don't see how children have a ghost of a chance when
>it comes to manipulating components in any meaningful way when
>highly educated engineers and scientists are having trouble
>doing it. Likewise, Smalltalk may have been created with children
>in mind, but it takes highly educated proferssionals to use
>Smalltalk effectively. Likewise, my grandchild gives me lots of
>stuff to hang on my refrigerator door, but in no sense is this
>real, or serious, "art" or "literature", dynamic or otherwise.
>
>PPS: To end this rant on a more positive note, I have no doubt
>that highly educated and/or talented people will be able to create
>dynamic books for "children of all ages", but this ain't kid's
>stuff. :-) So, let's get back to worrying about DynaBooks, rather
>than DynaProjects.


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