Just how productive is Smalltalk?

On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 1:13 AM, Richard Eng <<a href="javascript:" target="_blank" gdf-obfuscated-mailto="xX0sqOq1puEJ" rel="nofollow" onmousedown="this.href='javascript:';return true;" onclick="this.href='javascript:';return true;">horrido...@...> wrote:

<a href="https://smalltalkrenaissance.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/smalltalks-proven-productivity/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onmousedown="this.href='https://www.google.com/url?q\75https%3A%2F%2Fsmalltalkrenaissance.wordpress.com%2F2015%2F02%2F16%2Fsmalltalks-proven-productivity%2F\46sa\75D\46sntz\0751\46usg\75AFQjCNFNSakFO5NzOYO2w_HI8wkzX2MNpQ';return true;" onclick="this.href='https://www.google.com/url?q\75https%3A%2F%2Fsmalltalkrenaissance.wordpress.com%2F2015%2F02%2F16%2Fsmalltalks-proven-productivity%2F\46sa\75D\46sntz\0751\46usg\75AFQjCNFNSakFO5NzOYO2w_HI8wkzX2MNpQ';return true;">https://smalltalkrenaissance.wordpress.com/2015/02/16/smalltalks-proven-productivity/

The only "scientific" study I could find.

Nice.  Consider deleting that pingback to "Exploding ads".  I think you lose more than you gain when they are off-topic.

On a slightly different topic, thought you might just find this of general interest...

<a href="http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-novel-ideas-and-profound-insights-in-the-design-of-the-Smalltalk-programming-language" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" onmousedown="this.href='http://www.google.com/url?q\75http%3A%2F%2Fwww.quora.com%2FWhat-are-the-novel-ideas-and-profound-insights-in-the-design-of-the-Smalltalk-programming-language\46sa\75D\46sntz\0751\46usg\75AFQjCNGEgtaUaQAsnsT1E_a4rFh-UVeOLg';return true;" onclick="this.href='http://www.google.com/url?q\75http%3A%2F%2Fwww.quora.com%2FWhat-are-the-novel-ideas-and-profound-insights-in-the-design-of-the-Smalltalk-programming-language\46sa\75D\46sntz\0751\46usg\75AFQjCNGEgtaUaQAsnsT1E_a4rFh-UVeOLg';return true;">http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-novel-ideas-and-profound-insights-in-the-design-of-the-Smalltalk-programming-language

cheers -ben

For me, the killer feature is the debugger, being able to _simply_ modify code around an unhandled exception, then _continue_ program execution from the context of the exception.  This leads to a peculiar development style sometimes called "developing from within the debugger".  When writing a method, you code to send messages you haven't written yet, then run the method, which of course breaks into the debugger because the object receiving the message does not understand that message.  But with the click of a button, the message/method is created on that object and you are in an editor ready to write the method IN THE CONTEXT that it is being used.  You have a LIVE OBJECT sitting right there in front of you to inspect as you write method.  Then the debugger can step through the method bit by bit as you write it.  

btw, this feature is dependent on Smalltalk's resume-semantic-exceptions where exceptions are handled without unrolling the stack.  As I understand it, at least Java and C++ are lack such resume semantics for exceptions.

cheers -ben

On Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 3:52 PM, James Ladd <<a href="javascript:" target="_blank" gdf-obfuscated-mailto="CSF4dzf4jOcJ" rel="nofollow" onmousedown="this.href='javascript:';return true;" onclick="this.href='javascript:';return true;">ladd....@...> wrote:

Killer feature for Smalltalk is true OO w message passing- no built in constructs

Sent from the holodeck.

On 22 Feb 2015, at 4:26 pm, Richard Eng <<a href="javascript:" target="_blank" gdf-obfuscated-mailto="CSF4dzf4jOcJ" rel="nofollow" onmousedown="this.href='javascript:';return true;" onclick="this.href='javascript:';return true;">horrido...@...> wrote:

Yes, it makes an excellent argument for Smalltalk, too. But I was wondering: If macros are the killer feature of Lisp, what is the killer feature for Smalltalk?

On Wednesday, 18 February 2015 10:54:30 UTC-5, Ben Coman wrote:

Not sure if I've pasted this before, but I find really interesting Paul Graham's** idea of the Blub paradox.  Its about Lisp, but I think it has a lot of similarities to Smalltalk.

<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" onmousedown="this.href='http://www.google.com/url?q\75http%3A%2F%2Fwww.paulgraham.com%2Favg.html\46sa\75D\46sntz\0751\46usg\75AFQjCNH0azmoEUUGmILOkVA1JqtZ1mLPoA';return true;" onclick="this.href='http://www.google.com/url?q\75http%3A%2F%2Fwww.paulgraham.com%2Favg.html\46sa\75D\46sntz\0751\46usg\75AFQjCNH0azmoEUUGmILOkVA1JqtZ1mLPoA';return true;">http://www.paulgraham.com/avg.html

cheers -ben

** Y Combinator founder.

On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 7:30 AM, James Ladd <[hidden email]> wrote:

In the 90's there was an object or object world magazine cover that stated Smalltalk was 71% more productive than C - no surprises there.
Today the gap has to have closed but I'd bet there is still a significant advantage w Smalltalk.

How big a difference would there need to be to make you change language and tools?

- James

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