On 8/9/07, David Mitchell <david.mitchell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Irrespective of the quality of the innovation, changes to the core
> will always be slower in a democracy than a dictatorship.

I wasn't talking about the quality of anything.  I was talking about
the word "innovation".  I rechecked the meaning of the word since I
seem to see some different uses for it then I expected:

innovative

adjective
1. ahead of the times; "the advanced teaching methods"; "had advanced
views on the subject"; "a forward-looking corporation"; "is British
industry innovative enough?" [syn: advanced]
2. being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or
created before; "stylistically innovative works"; "innovative members
of the artistic community"; "a mind so innovational, so original"

This feels to me like one of those things you can pronounce about your
own things, someone else has to do it for it to be meaningful.

> Compare with the introduction of brace syntax.
>
> Before brace syntax, I don't remember feeling all that much pain. I
> just did OrderedCollection new add:;add:;add;yourself. Certainly
> idiomatic Smalltalk.
>
> Can you imagine if Keith had proposed adding brace syntax today? When
> Squeak was a benevolent dictatorship, brace syntax just showed up in
> the update stream. No discussion;  just announcement.
>
> We're missing the authority to effect that kind of change. Note too
> that Squeak Central probably judged that an incremental (pink plane)
> kind of change. I'm not sure there is much that can be done here.
> Changes by Alan, Ted, or Dan effectively *were* Smalltalk because we
> trust and follow.
>
> >From others, not as much.

This is a good point, but I do see things still coming in (e.g. Traits).