Fear and loathing of the "perlification" of Smalltalk
Peter William Lount
peter at smalltalk.org
Wed Sep 5 00:45:45 UTC 2007
Alan Kay wrote:
> ...
>
> Wrt Smalltalk (or any language), I think being able to judiciously
> extend the syntax is a good idea (though often misused), but it needs
> to be done at the same level as regular programming (so it can be used
> by any base version of the language).
>
>
Hi,
I fully agree with Alan's statement above particularly the first part:
"I think being able to judiciously extend the syntax is a good idea
(though often misused)". That is exactly the fear that I have with the
extensions going on by the various Smalltalk implementations. It creates
a highly fragmented language environment. There are already 25+ versions
of smalltalk out there. I gather that Smalltalk is following the Unix
and Linux model where there are hundreds of versions rather than the
Microsoft and Java model where there is just one version. (Ok there are
multiple versions of Windows and Java but you get the point).
I wonder Alan, if you could, expand on what you mean by "but it needs to
be done at the same level as regular programming (so it can be used by
any base version of the language)"?
Thanks.
Peter
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