Hi --At 09:17 AM 5/18/2006, SmallSqueak wrote:

--snip--


>     I browsed through it and been wondering who is Semour Papert
>
>         "A month later, I finally visited Semour Papert..."

Seymour Papert, mathematician, educator, and the main inventor of Logo. 
Wikipedia has some bio information.


>     and who is Can:
>         "Ted went back to CMU but Can was still around egging me on."

This must be Dan Ingalls.


>     Early Smalltalk is much more interesting than Squeak ;-) :
>
>         "It evaluted 3 = 4

3+4

>         very slowly (it was "glacial", as Butler liked to say)
>         but the answer alwas came out 7."
>
>     Who is Check:
>
>         "Just before Check started work on the machine ..."
>         ...
>         "Check had started his "bet" on November 22, 1972."

Chuck Thacker, the main inventor and builder of the Xerox PARC Alto.

Cheers,

Alan


>     ...
>     ...
>     ...
>
>
>     It is very much appreciated if some seasoned Smalltalkers
>     would help to proof read this HTML version.
>
>     I would like to suggest that The Squeak Foundation would
>     ask for permission to put it on The Foundation home page.
>
>     Many thanks in advance.
>
>     Cheers,
>
>     PhiHo
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jecel Assumpcao Jr" <jecel at merlintec.com>
>To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
><squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>Sent: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 2:44 PM
>Subject: YASoB (was Re: some news)
>
>
> > PhiHo,
> >
> > > "Alan Kay" wrote:
> > >
> > > "... it really bothers me that so many people on this list
> > > are satisfied with Smalltalk-80 (Yikes!)
> > > But that's another soapbox."
> > >
> > >
> > > Dear Seasoned Squeakers,
> > >
> > > I have followed this list for a while and I have a feeling
> > > that Alan Kay is not particularly fond of Smalltalk-80.
> > >
> > > I've been wondering why or maybe I got it wrong.
> > >
> > > Your thought is very much appreciated.
> > >
> > > I really hope if Alan is not too busy we will be
> > > able to hear it straight from the Dragon's mouth. ;-)
> >
> > Rather than speaking for Alan, I will just quote two paragraphs from his
> > "Early History of Smalltalk" (there is a link to a PDF version in Stef's
> > Free Books page and there is a html version with some missing pictures
> > at http://gagne.homedns.org/~tgagne/contrib/EarlyHistoryST.html):
> >
> > -------
> > I will try to show where most of the influences came from and how they
> > were transformed in the magnetic field formed by the new personal
> > computing metaphor. It was the attitudes as well as the great ideas of
> > the pioneers that helped Smalltalk get invented. Many of the people I
> > admired most at this time--such as Ivan Sutherland, Marvin Minsky,
> > Seymour Papert, Gordon Moore, Bob Barton, Dave Evans, Butler Lampson,
> > Jerome Bruner, and others--seemed to have a splendid sense that their
> > creations, though wonderful by relative standards, were not near to the
> > absolute thresholds that had to be crossed. Small minds try to form
> > religions, the great ones just want better routes up the mountain. Where
> > Newton said he saw further by standing on the shoulders of giants,
> > computer scientists all too often stand on each other's toes. Myopia is
> > still a problem where there are giants' shoulders to stand
> > on--"outsight" is better than insight--but it can be minimized by using
> > glasses whose lenses are highly sensitive to esthetics and criticism.
> > -------
> >
> > and
> >
> > -------
> > New ideas go through stages of acceptance, both from within and without.
> > >From within, the sequence moves from "barely seeing" a pattern several
> > times, then noting it but not perceiving its "cosmic" significance, then
> > using it operationally in several areas, then comes a "grand rotation"
> > in which the pattern becomes the center of a new way of thinking, and
> > finally, it turns into the same kind of inflexible religion that it
> > originally broke away from. From without, as Schopenhauer noted, the new
> > idea is first denounced as the work of the insane, in a few years it is
> > considered obvious and mundane, and finally the original denouncers will
> > claim to have invented it.
> > -------
> >
> > My comment on this is that Smalltalk-80 was indeed wonderful by relative
> > standards, but it shouldn't become a religion that keeps us from
> > inventing something better. Though this isn't nearly as sad as people
> > who keep insisting on creating things that are worse while the public
> > assumes it is automatically better than something "old" like Smalltalk
> > (what C. S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery").
> >
> > --Jecel
> >