Am 03.07.2008 um 03:14 schrieb Michael van der Gulik:

> On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Craig Latta <craig at netjam.org> wrote:
>
> > I don't share your point here. A name is quite relevant to  
> computing:
> > if we going to talk with computers then to understand each other we
> > need something in common - a language. Small language, which we can
> > understand both and talk on it :)
> >
> > And that's the most why i like smalltalk - it is small. It is
> > inherently easy to learn and talk on it. Maybe there other  
> language(s)
> > which would make programmer's life as easy as smalltalk does. But i
> > didn't met them yet in my life.
>
>     That's all true, but it also indicates to me that you're not  
> familiar with the original meaning of the word "smalltalk" in  
> English. :)  It has strongly negative baggage.
>
>
> It does? First time I heard; I always thought it was an important  
> social skill: http://howto.lifehack.org/wiki/Small_Talk

Hehe - but it's the very definition of geeks/nerds to lack "social  
skills", they have a hard time doing small talk, they feel chatting  
about irrelevant things is a waste of time. Hence the word has a  
negative taste in these circles. And the percentage of them among  
computer professional is higher than average.

Even amongst Squeakers the percentage of people lovingly decorating  
their images, cuddling it with updates and patches over years is  
dwindling. The "real programmers" who just load packages to get work  
done in "throw-away" images are in the majority now.

- Bert -