[squeak-dev] A Sad Day

Stephen Davies stephen.l.davies at gmail.com
Sat Aug 15 14:13:01 UTC 2020


Hi,

I have I think a good understanding of the principles of Smalltalk 80.

But I admit I find Squeak and Pharo overwhelming - I will blame my
increasing age - but Cuis I can get hold of.

Of course I have no doubt that if Squeak is an "old friend" you would not
willingly switch to a Smalltalk with so much less in the class library.

Regards,
Steve

On Sat, 15 Aug 2020, 11:56 giorgio ferraris, <giorgioferraris at elevensoft.it>
wrote:

> if you go out of the commercial (and so more stable), Smalltalks, I think
> Cuis Smalltalk could be a nice answer to simplicity, try to give a look.
> They are maniacs about code reduction (less is more to the limit...)
> Squeak and Pharo are interesting for the new features added, but you pay
> the cost in term of complexity
>
> ciao
>
> giorgio
>
> On Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 9:42 PM Vanessa Freudenberg <vanessa at codefrau.net>
> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Aug 14, 2020 at 2:31 AM Marcel Taeumel <marcel.taeumel at hpi.de>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Trygve,
>>>
>>> I apologize for any misunderstandings here. I am not an English native
>>> speaker. It was not my intent do accuse you of lying.
>>>
>>> However, there is a difference between a bug report and an
>>> unsubstantiated rant. I did read your entire post "A Sad Day" as the
>>> latter. Whose mistake that was, I cannot tell now. Neutral, objective bug
>>> reports would read different, I suppose.
>>>
>>
>> It was neither a bug report nor an unsubstantiated rant. It was a
>> criticism of the complexity of all current Smalltalks. The few examples of
>> unexpected complexity in Squeak that Trygve chose to mention are not the
>> actual issue. No need to feel personally attacked.
>>
>> Having worked with a beautifully tiny system like Smalltalk-78, or even
>> early versions of Squeak, the complexity in modern Squeak is staggering.
>>
>> Smalltalk used to be a system that can be fully understood by a single
>> person - truly a personal computing system. That is no longer the case.
>>
>> All the functionality we added over the years comes at the price of
>> complexity (not to mention speed). It makes the system hard to understand.
>> It makes it hard to see the design principles. We have not found a way to
>> eliminate, or at least hide, any of the complexity we introduced.
>>
>> I don't think there is a "solution" for this within the current system.
>> We have accepted the complexity, and now we have to live with it. And we
>> have to accept that that alienates people who are looking for simplicity
>> and elegance.
>>
>> I am sad to see Trygve leave, but I do understand. He didn't even owe us
>> an explanation. Thank you, Trygve!
>>
>> All the best,
>> Vanessa
>>
>>
>
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