Hi all,

At 1:16 PM +0100 2/10/03, Andreas Raab wrote:
 >eToys do exactly this. They provide an environment which is extremely
 >convenient for the kids to use and boy, many a time I have wished that
 >Squeak would be more like eToys. Bridging this gap, making the "system
 >level" part of Squeak more like eToys is the thing that needs to be done.
In
 >particular in the UI area since that's what most people will look at and
 >play with first, so it's the place where strong fences are most needed
 >(present in eToys). Pretty much everything else will come naturally. Of
 >course, such an environment would no longer be "Smalltalk" - but in order
to
 >protect the critical system notions we simply HAVE to get rid of it or at
 >least some of its intrinsically dangerous notions when it comes to an
open,
 >easily usable, and still robust environment.

(I have good news for you :-)
Smalltalk is an evolving environment, then if you change
it in any way it will continue been Smalltalk. :-)

Evolution is the property of a system to change
anyway to continue been "alive" (evolution preserve identity).
It is the main difference between an evolving system
and a programming language.

If you cange a syntax in a minimal way... it will not
be the "same" syntax (the change does not preserve
formal rules defining the language).
In an environment (where evolution can be observed and not simply change)
the identity of the system is preserved and not it internal properties nor
system emergencies.

As an example:
A better language than C can be C++ (C++ is NOT C).
Smalltalk is defined as an object environment, then a better smalltalk is an
smalltalk with better objects (it continue been the SAME object environment,
named Smalltalk).
[inside smalltalk you can find a lot of objects specified
using a syntax, also named Smalltalk :-( ]

Object Technology let us leave the languages (and formal methods)
to start handling open systems development.
In an object environment we can use formal expressions
define objects (work object oriented) and observe
the emergencies of the resulting virtual system
to learn differences with natural/physical systems
without defining them as objects (not all things are objects).

cheers,
Ale.