"stéphane ducasse" wrote:

> Have you really looked at Smalltalk-72?

    Actually, not yet.

    I am hoping that some good souls will shed some light,
    so that I can decide whether I should look at Smalltalk-80
    or 76 or 72 or even Squeak 3.9 beta ;-)

    Nah, maybe, I shall look at Dolphin.
    (after it's been Traitorised, of course ;-) ;-)

> Do you think that you could build a real system

    Please define "real system".

    Do you mean Smalltalk-72 support only integers ;-)

> with each class been  able to define its own syntax?

    Very interesting.

    I didn't know that, thanks for telling, Stef.

    Why do you think you cannot build a real system with
    St-72 because each class in St-72 can define its own
    syntax.

> It depends what is the goal of the language.

    This is a billion dollars question.

> If this is to build application it seems that ST-80
> is better than 72. At least with my taste.
>

    So the goal of ST-80 (or should it be St-80) is for
    building application.

    By application you mean real commercial  stuff like
    MS Office or Oracle DBMS?

    Would you please tell what's the goal of St-72?

    For that matter, what's the goal for Squeak?

    Cheers,

    PhiHo


>
> >     I have a feeling that to many Smalltakers, in general, there
> > have been
> >     no advances in software engineering and computer language design
> >     since Smalltalk was invented.
> >
> >     When was Smalltalk really invented?
> >
> >     Was it in 1972 or 1976 or 1980?
> >
> >     Did Squeak Central insist on creating things that are worse than
> >     Smalltalk-72 and the crowd assumed that it is automatically better
> >     than something "old" like Smalltalk-72?
> >
> >     For that matter, did the commercial Smalltalk vendors insist
> >     likewise?
> >
> >     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
> >>
> >
> >
>
>