better or worse (was: YASoB)

Ralph Johnson johnson at cs.uiuc.edu
Thu May 18 19:23:23 UTC 2006


On 5/18/06, Jecel Assumpcao Jr <jecel at merlintec.com> wrote:
> >     When was Smalltalk really invented?
> >
> >     Was it in 1972 or 1976 or 1980?
>
> In 1972 we got the seed (objects and messages) and in 1976 the current
> form (vm, classes as objects, inheritance).

What does "invented" mean?  And what is Smalltalk?

In my opinion, the class library is as important as the vm and the
language syntax, and the culture is as important as the class library.
 They have been developing continually.  So, I do not think that
Smalltalk has ever been created.  We can say when key ideas were
invented, but Smalltalk is much more than vm and classes as objects.

I've been programming in Smalltalk since 1985.  It (and I) have
changed a lot since then.  Smalltalk in 1985 had changed a fair bit
since the original Smalltalk-80.  For example, the pluggable MVC was
part of Smalltalk-80 R 2, but not the original R1, and understanding
pluggability was important for me.  Pluggability has become an
important part of the culture.

Of course, Smalltalk hasn't changed as much as it should have, but
that is a different story.

-Ralph Johnson



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