Promoting Squeak in Academia

Matthew Fulmer tapplek at gmail.com
Sun Sep 17 19:58:50 UTC 2006


On Sun, Sep 17, 2006 at 06:46:17PM +0000, J J wrote:
> Another big win for smalltalk is the environment.  Show those C++ guys 
> errors like when you forget a double quote.  It isn't going to make an 
> error actually show up 300 lines below, it shows up exactly in that method 
> (because you do one method at a time).
> 
> ...
> 
> I don't know if all that (and more) will sell them, but it sold me.

I think you are right about the programmers, but I think it is
far more interesting what the art students will think of
smalltalk. Unfortunately, I think that Max/MSP is still a
higher-level programming environment than is smalltalk, and it
would probably be a big sell to get them to "downgrade" to
smalltalk.

I am a programmer, but I have never really seen anyone be as
productive as the visual art students who have never used a
traditional programming language, but learned "programming" in
Max/MSP. They have created some impressive games with collision
detection and good physics without writing a line of source
code. I even had one of them ask me, "What is an index?". I
think it goes to show that programming does not need to be
nearly as low-leveled as "programmers" make it out to be. Squeak
has embraced this concept, but I think we can still do a lot
better.

So, I think that Squeak should expand it's focus beyond
traditional programmers, and look at the revolutions computers
are causing in other areas, such as art and engineering. Squeak
definitely has the potential to revolutionize computer
interaction, and we can learn a lot from those who have not been
exposed to traditional programming.

Note: I am new to smalltalk, so some things I said will be wrong.

-- 
Matthew Fulmer



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