Smalltalk, APL and Poetry

Fri Mar 10 10:01:09 UTC 2006

Bryce/List,

Stephen Taylor is willing to make a presentation on our first meeting 
(SUK1). 

I would prefer to see K in action (see Stephen's comments about K). 

Will we have a projector in the Pinesoft offices? 

Regards,
Francisco
------------------------------------------------
  Francisco Jose Garau
  London Kapital Development
  Ext: 71362 -- Stent: 2649

"Stephen Taylor" <sjt at 5jt.com>
10/03/2006 08:43

        To:     "Francisco Garau" <fgarau at gmail.com>
        cc:     "Romilly Cocking" <romilly at cocking.co.uk>
        Subject:        RE: Smalltalk, APL and Poetry

Thank you, for the compliments and the invitation: I'd love to. I first
heard about Smalltalk in the August 1981 issue of Byte magazine and
immediately fell in love.

I'd do as you suggest, bring some production code, and give a taste of 
what
writing APL is like, but focus on the language-independent notions of 
using
semantic density to collapse the communication paths of software 
development
into a dialogue between writer and client.

How long would you want me to speak for, and to how many? Would people be
clustered around a laptop, or would I be using a projector?

I've attached a paper I've submitted to XP2006, and the text of an address 
I
gave to the K User Meeting in the City last week*. Also an earlier piece
that was picked up by Java Today.

Best
Stephen

* K is an APL derivative, used mostly by financial market traders, that is
insanely fast and terse. Typically outperforms Oracle by 1-2 orders of
magnitude, code volume 2 orders of magnitude smaller than C++; server
licences start from about US$100K; object code for the interpreter 
occupies
only 100Kb. www.kx.com

Attached:
"Software development as a collaborative writing project"
"I was a Teenage Software Engineer"

also:
"The Experience of Being Understood: On requirements specification as a
Wittgensteinian language game"
http://www.5jt.com/archive/000017.html

-----Original Message-----
From: Francisco Garau [mailto:fgarau at gmail.com]
Sent: 10 March 2006 01:25
To: Stephen Taylor
Subject: Smalltalk, APL and Poetry

Hi Stephen,

We met a couple of Tuesday's ago in the XtC club and you gave me a Vector
magazine from Nov 2005. Yesterday night I read your article about Pair
Programming. Very interesting and beatifully written.

I think our communities (Smalltalk and APL) have a lot in common. Maybe it
is because the languages are similar. I really don't know, because I don't
know APL. But I could read your article, replace APL by Smalltalk and
totally agree with what you are saying.

It would be nice to see some live APL code. Would you like to come to our
next meeting and give a presentation about APL and your work? (or whatever
you want to talk about)

I will be a nice opportunity to start some cross fertilization amongst the
old --but very innovative-- programming languages (APL, Lisp, Smalltalk,
Forth).

Kind Regards,
Francisco

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryce Kampjes" <bryce at kampjes.demon.co.uk>
To: <uksmalltalk at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 09, 2006 11:04 PM
Subject: A Smalltalk Day London - 8th April 2006

>
> We're organising a Smalltalk day in London on Saturday the 8th of
> April. Many thanks to Pinesoft for offering the use of their office
> space conveniently situated beside Chancery lane tube.
>
> Who's interested and what would people like to do? I could give
> my talk on Exupery. Other demo's and talks would be great.
>
> It should be a good chance to share knowledge with other Smalltalkers
> so keep the 8th free and bring lap-tops if you have them.
>
> More later.
> Bryce
> _______________________________________________
> uksmalltalk mailing list
> uksmalltalk at lists.squeakfoundation.org
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/uksmalltalk

This communication is for informational purposes only. It is not intended
as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial
instrument or as an official confirmation of any transaction. All market prices,
data and other information are not warranted as to completeness or accuracy and
are subject to change without notice. Any comments or statements made herein 
do not necessarily reflect those of JPMorgan Chase & Co., its subsidiaries 
and affiliates.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: sdaacwp.DOC
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 1588736 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/uksmalltalk/attachments/20060310/9f05af19/sdaacwp-0001.obj
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: I was a teenage software engineer.rtf
Type: application/rtf
Size: 11702 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/uksmalltalk/attachments/20060310/9f05af19/Iwasateenagesoftwareengineer-0001.rtf