Squeak is a social community

> Who is Squeak for? What are the guiding principles for decisions?
>
> There's been a lot of discussion about this lately -- as always. So I
> thought some folks might (or might not!) be interested in the
> philosophy that Squeak is defined not by technical nor procedural
> means, but as a social phenomenon among the people who happen to
> consider themselves Squeakers (or Smalltalkers).
>
> Many years ago, Kent Pitman made this argument about Lisp, and I think
> he said it well:  http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PS/Lambda.html

> I agree. I think Squeak is a bunch of different groups. Since  
> Smalltalk was the prototype for the modern day personal computer  
> platforms, Mac OS and Windows, they have similar issues. Each of  
> them have different communities to support as well. They have their  
> users who just want to do some word processing, e-mail, and web  
> browsing. They have their "power users" who want to do desktop  
> publishing, web publishing; photo and video editing, business  
> functions, games, etc. They have a development community that  
> writes this software. And they have the system level coders who  
> write system utilities for these platforms. These are different  
> from the Squeak communities, but I'm sure similar dynamics are  
> involved. Each time the OS vendor produces a new upgrade, they  
> recognize they need to provide compatibility and "goodies" to each  
> of these communities in order for the platform to thrive.
>
> ---Mark
>
> -------------- Original message --------------
> From: Lex Spoon <[hidden email]>
>
> > Howard Stearns writes:
> >
> > > Who is Squeak for? What are the guiding principles for decisions?
> > >
> > > There's been a lot of discussion about this lately -- as  
> always. So I
> > > thought some folks might (or might not!) be interested in the
> > > philosophy that Squeak is defined not by technical nor procedural
> > > means, but as a social phenomenon among the people who happen to
> > > consider themselves Squeakers (or Smalltalkers).
> > >
> > > Many years ago, Kent Pitman made this argument about Lisp, and  
> I think
> > > he said it well: http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PS/Lambda.html
> >
> > Thanks for the link, Howard, I look forward to reading it.
> >
> > I view Squeak as a common area for a lot of different groups, and  
> thus
> > the social aspect cannot be ignored if you want to understand  
> Squeak.
> > It's not a project with a single goal and a 5-year plan for getting
> > there.
> >
> > Brenda Laurel compares the situation to Renaissance Festivals,  
> and has
> > a great way of putting it: "Everyone there is having a good time,  
> but
> > everyone there is having a *different* good time."
> >
> > As a quick stab, we have:
> >
> > - The Squeakland project, Alan Kay's favorite branch, which uses
> > Squeak as a new kind of media. Squeakland tries to
> >
> > - Myriad computer-science research groups who love having a free,
> > malleable Smalltalk as a base to experiement from.
> >
> > - Classroom usage for teaching how objects work.
> >
> > - Development. Smalltalk is very productive, and Squeak is
> > a good one.
> >
> > - ... and maybe a part of the Hundred Dollar Laptop.
> >
> >
> > An older article I wrote tries to make the same enumeration, as well
> > as sketch what kind of bilaws would make any sense for such a  
> diverse
> > group:
> >
> > http://people.squeakfoundation.org/article/44.html
> >
> > Anyway, I'm sure I left some folks out. What do others think?
> >
> > -Lex
> >
> >
>

> True, but missing my point (and Lex's, I think, which is certainly  
> not the only way to look at it).  The platform-as-party view is that  
> different platforms (or languages or projects) can be thought of  
> simply as a group of people -- not what the people do with the platform.
>
> Think of a political party, or the group of fans of one sports team  
> vs another. There may be values, intentions, or practices that set  
> one group from another, but quite often there isn't. Or maybe they're  
> not consistent. While some folks hook up with one group or another  
> because of values and such, many are just born into it. Maybe there  
> was a cute girl. Or someone impressed you as really knowing what they  
> were doing and they turned out to be a Squeaker. Sometimes the  
> reasons that things happen is subtle. Sometimes there isn't a reason  
> at all.  [The mathematician Gregory Chaitin is considered the heir to  
> Goedel. He is noted for proving that some things (in mathematics) are  
> not true for a particular reason -- they just are.  As a (randomly?)  
> triple apropos example of my point, I only became acquainted with  
> Chaitin because he uses the count of characters in Lisp source code  
> as an inverse measure of a computation's elegance. I thought that was  
> cool, and had some correspondence with the guy, which made me a fan.  
> Probably more than would be warranted by the math. Cult of  
> personality happens. Kuhn happens.]
>
> All of which is very touchy-feely and interesting and all, but what's  
> the value? As much as I hate the idea that people devote so much of  
> their lives to subtle and sometimes arbitrary choices of clique, it  
> is a fact. We can either ignore this disagreeable truth and flail, or  
> we can try to incorporate it into our thinking.
>
> [Make's no difference to me. I'm just watching and sharing. Your  
> mileage may vary.]
>
> Again, Kent's description is at http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PS/ 
> Lambda.html
> It's pretty short, and he writes better than I do.
>
> -H
>
> On Oct 28, 2006, at 10:45 PM, [hidden email] wrote:
>
>> I agree. I think Squeak is a bunch of different groups. Since  
>> Smalltalk was the prototype for the modern day personal computer  
>> platforms, Mac OS and Windows, they have similar issues. Each of  
>> them have different communities to support as well. They have their  
>> users who just want to do some word processing, e-mail, and web  
>> browsing. They have their "power users" who want to do desktop  
>> publishing, web publishing; photo and video editing, business  
>> functions, games, etc. They have a development community that  writes
>> this software. And they have the system level coders who  write
>> system utilities for these platforms. These are different  from the
>> Squeak communities, but I'm sure similar dynamics are  involved. Each
>> time the OS vendor produces a new upgrade, they  recognize they need
>> to provide compatibility and "goodies" to each  of these communities
>> in order for the platform to thrive.
>>
>> ---Mark
>>
>> -------------- Original message --------------
>> From: Lex Spoon <[hidden email]>
>>
>> > Howard Stearns writes:
>> >
>> > > Who is Squeak for? What are the guiding principles for decisions?
>> > >
>> > > There's been a lot of discussion about this lately -- as  always.
>> So I
>> > > thought some folks might (or might not!) be interested in the
>> > > philosophy that Squeak is defined not by technical nor procedural
>> > > means, but as a social phenomenon among the people who happen to
>> > > consider themselves Squeakers (or Smalltalkers).
>> > >
>> > > Many years ago, Kent Pitman made this argument about Lisp, and  I
>> think
>> > > he said it well: http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PS/Lambda.html
>> >
>> > Thanks for the link, Howard, I look forward to reading it.
>> >
>> > I view Squeak as a common area for a lot of different groups, and  
>> thus
>> > the social aspect cannot be ignored if you want to understand  Squeak.
>> > It's not a project with a single goal and a 5-year plan for getting
>> > there.
>> >
>> > Brenda Laurel compares the situation to Renaissance Festivals,  and
>> has
>> > a great way of putting it: "Everyone there is having a good time,  but
>> > everyone there is having a *different* good time."
>> >
>> > As a quick stab, we have:
>> >
>> > - The Squeakland project, Alan Kay's favorite branch, which uses
>> > Squeak as a new kind of media. Squeakland tries to
>> >
>> > - Myriad computer-science research groups who love having a free,
>> > malleable Smalltalk as a base to experiement from.
>> >
>> > - Classroom usage for teaching how objects work.
>> >
>> > - Development. Smalltalk is very productive, and Squeak is
>> > a good one.
>> >
>> > - ... and maybe a part of the Hundred Dollar Laptop.
>> >
>> >
>> > An older article I wrote tries to make the same enumeration, as well
>> > as sketch what kind of bilaws would make any sense for such a  diverse
>> > group:
>> >
>> > http://people.squeakfoundation.org/article/44.html
>> >
>> > Anyway, I'm sure I left some folks out. What do others think?
>> >
>> > -Lex
>> >
>> >
>>
>
>
>
>