[squeak-dev] ...and some cool Smalltalk history! (Re: [Pharo-users] a Pharo talk from a ruby conference)

Göran Krampe goran at krampe.se
Tue Apr 29 16:30:14 UTC 2014


Howdy!

(cc to squeak-dev because I think lots want to read this)

If you want to know some cool history of Smalltalk, and perhaps this is 
a strong argument in actually *being* a Smalltalk and not trying to 
distance yourself from that rich and lovely heritage.... anyway, here goes:

On 04/28/2014 08:14 PM, Alain Busser wrote:
> Also, Ruby is famous for these methods:
>
> *select
> *reject
> *collect
>
> do these names not remind you something ;-) ?

There is a funny story about these verbs. Martin McClure told me at ESUG 
in Brest to ask Dan Ingalls about it, hinting that they are "inspired" 
by a famous song.

And thus I did ask Dan in my interview with him I did a few years back 
over Skype (it is an interesting interview, for example - was there an 
inspiration from biology when Smalltalk was created?):

http://files.krampe.se/interview.mp3

...the song in question is by Arlo Guthrie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Restaurant_Massacree

...and here is a URL to the lyrics of it:

http://www.lyricsty.com/arlo-guthrie-alices-restaurant-lyrics.html

(search down to "injected"!) ...or just let me quote:

"They got a building down New York City, it's called Whitehall Street,
Where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected,
Neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one
Day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, 
so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning."


...now... where do we stuff in #neglect:? :)

regards, Göran


More information about the Squeak-dev mailing list