election details *PLEASE READ*

Roel Wuyts Roel.Wuyts at ulb.ac.be
Wed Feb 21 21:52:45 UTC 2007


I drink do that. Cheers Andreas.

It's fun that especially a very open and reflective language like  
Smalltalk actually is not extended very much (or only within small  
research projects not taken up by the community). Where are the macro  
systems ? Variable length argument lists ? Nifty versioning and  
packaging systems ? Monads ? Usable typing systems ? etc. etc.

On 21 Feb 2007, at 21 February/07:59, Andreas Raab wrote:

>>> 4) What do you believe is the future of Smalltalk?
>> I believe every other language is asymptotically approaching  
>> Smalltalk.
>
> Hm. Can't really let this statement stand by itself. While I think  
> (hope) it isn't meant that way I find ignorance one of the hardest  
> things to tolerate. Saying that "every other language is  
> asymptotically approaching Smalltalk" sounds too much like "and  
> therefore we can safely ignore them" to my mind. My wish for people  
> representing Squeak (not only, but particularly those) would be to  
> be open and engaging in discussion about the strengths and  
> weaknesses of each system and language. This means acknowledging  
> that other languages (including Java) have their strengths (yes,  
> including Java) and that a discussion (regardless of its outcome)  
> about what parts may be worthwhile to adopt in the context of  
> Squeak is desirable and should be held with an open mind towards  
> improving both language and system.
>
> Personally, I think Python is a good example in this regard. There  
> are a lot of new features proposed every time and they are often  
> weighed based on how "Pythonic" they feel (which is a beautifully  
> underspecified term to keep the discussion open and discuss how a  
> feature relates in the context of other language features). And  
> while I will admit that language changes can go overboard (recently  
> I discovered "whitespaceless" Python which is about as *disgusting*  
> a language abuse as they get) a lot of good features get integrated  
> in Python by looking at and learning from other languages and systems.
>
> In any case, I think it is important for people representing Squeak  
> to stay open to improvements *to the language* and not just to  
> claim that "eventually, every other language will get there so  
> really there will never, ever be anything to learn here".
>
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas
>




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