>On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 8:18 PM, Chris Muller<asqueaker at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Avi, Clamato looks interesting.  I am curious about the roadmap;
>> the main driving objective propeling the work forward.  Truly a new
>> "Smalltalk dialect" running in the browser?  Or is Clamato's ultimate
>> goal more about wielding the browser via Javascript..?
>
>I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "wielding the browser via
>Javascript", but - for us, the main objective is to have a more
>pleasant environment in which to write the client-side of web
>applications.  A secondary use case might be to just use the web
>browser as a development environment for code that was intended to run
>on, say, V8 on the server.
>
>Avi

I'm very much interested in this too.

Here's what I project from what I'm hearing...

1.  You like Smalltalk, so you want a language that is as much like it as possible... except for things you don't like, of course.  This also fits in with your "shop" that does a lot of other real Smalltalk work.

2.  You want to take advantage of engines like V8 that offer (a) ubiquity in browsers, and (b) escalating performance paid for by the few remaining profitable companies.

3.  This implies a very close mapping onto JavaScript semantics, but really only onto the subset that you need for the job.

This is very close to what I had in mind as the follow-on to the April Fools prank that never happened.


Since you've ventured to answer Chris's question, allow me to sneak a few more questions into the discussion...

What have you left out on purpose because you don't like it?

What have you left out that you would rather not leave out?

What have you changed that you would rather not?

What would you still like to change?

And two specific questions:

Why no return values from methods?

and why the @-sign on inst var references?

In case it wasn't clear before, I love your spunk in carrying this through to an actual artifact, for only then can any really meaningful criticism take place. My questions are all aimed at eliciting some of your experience and future aims (as I have some of my own in that space), from which to ponder ways in which I (and all of us) might contribute.

	- Dan