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https://medium.com/@richardeng/t-h-o-r-25b62437175c
-- I'm trying to create a different spin. Hey, it can't hurt! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "amber-lang" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [hidden email]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. |
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Excerpts from Richard Eng's message of 2015-09-09 14:23:33 +0200:
> https://medium.com/@richardeng/t-h-o-r-25b62437175c > > I'm trying to create a different spin. Hey, it can't hurt! hmm, i feel that your writing is a bit to sensationalistic. while i appreciate your enthusiasm, personally i would be much more motivated by actual experiences, like success-stories, where you demonstrate how smalltalk helped you solve a problem. you are writing about problems that others may not see as problems at all, for example: Third is the consistency of the Smalltalk programming model. It is much simpler than, for example, hybrid models found in Scala, C++, and JavaScript. It eliminates the “schizophrenia” of mentally switching between procedural, object-oriented, and functional styles, and even between dynamic and static typing! This allows you to think more directly and consistently on the problem, and thus work more efficiently. i have never experienced such schizophrenia in any other language that i have used. so i don't see what you are trying to tell here. i also don't see your point about the syntax. while smalltalks syntax is elegant in its simplicity, i don't see how that would be interesting to anyone but those who have been programming for a long time and learned a number of languages in their career. as for lisp's prefix notation, i don't see how (search "x" "abcxyz") is any different from search("x", "abcxyz"); only mathematical operators are unusual here, and unless your code is lot's of math, then you won't see to many of those. learning syntax is not really a big deal, anyone can do that in a short time. learning the tools and libraries is a different matter. for a project i am currently working on i was considering either node.js or smalltalk for the REST based backend. when i thought about the options, this came to my mind: for node.js i am sure i can find lots of examples that i can copy and modify until i get what i need easily. for smalltalk i didn't have that feeling. despite never having used node.js before but having experimented with smalltalk and even having a skeleton of a REST server already written, i didn't feel that i knew enough about the pharo environment that i would be able to get this done quickly. and it's not the syntax that gets in the way here, but the unfamiliarity of the environment. lastly: why is smalltalk not ready for primetime? if i didn't know better, that statement would tell me that smalltalk is maybe like a language before their first stable release. a language that has never been used in serious products, never been tested to its limits. (like rust or go until recently) to the common programmer that just says: ok then, i'll just come back when you are ready. but it's been used in production for decades. smalltalk may be missing a number of things expected from a modern programming language, but being ready for primetime is not among the missing items. greetings, martin. -- eKita - the online platform for your entire academic life -- chief engineer eKita.co pike programmer pike.lysator.liu.se caudium.net societyserver.org secretary beijinglug.org mentor fossasia.org foresight developer foresightlinux.org realss.com unix sysadmin Martin Bähr working in china http://societyserver.org/mbaehr/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "amber-lang" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [hidden email]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. |
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On Wednesday, 9 September 2015 12:10:05 UTC-4, Martin Bähr wrote:
Excerpts from Richard Eng's message of 2015-09-09 14:23:33 +0200: Sensationalistic, yes. Remember, Smalltalk Renaissance is largely a PR campaign, i.e., a marketing campaign. I'm pulling off an 'Apple'. ;-) Having said that, the Smalltalk Renaissance website does have resources and informative articles, as well as one "success story." Recall when I started this campaign, I put out a general call for story submissions. Only one Smalltalker responded (Lorenzo Schiavina). I made use of what I was given. you are writing about problems that others may not see as problems at all, for This article was inspired by a post from Sebastian Sastre. I borrowed some of his ideas, including the ones you cite as not "problems at all." Moreover, having a consistent programming model for Smalltalk is quite vital, according to Alan Lovejoy, whom I unashamedly ripped off (see "Getting The Message"). i also don't see your point about the syntax. The philosophy (and importance) of a syntactically simple language that is extremely easy to master goes back a long way in history. In the 1970s and 1980s, advocates for such languages included Niklaus Wirth (Oberon) and Per Brinch Hansen (Edison). They believed, as do I, that any cognitive barrier to mastering a language makes you less efficient. Today, this philosophy spills over into the latest language entrant, Go. Clearly, people like Rob Pike and Ken Thompson also share the same beliefs. BTW, I defy any programmer on the planet to claim that he has truly mastered the C++ language. (Or D. Or Scala. Or Vala.) as for lisp's prefix notation, i don't see how (search "x" "abcxyz") is any I was thinking more about binary arithmetic and logical operators. But the more salient point is that prefix notation reads LESS like natural language than Smalltalk's infix notation and use of keyword messages. Again, this is about removing cognitive barriers, no matter how low. learning syntax is not really a big deal, anyone can do that in a short time. Learning is not the same as mastering. Especially if the learning is uncomfortable. I've taken at least two stabs at learning Scheme and never got very far. Is this because I am incapable of learning more than one programming language? Look at my CV: Fortran, Tandem TAL, C/C++, C#, Objective-C, Java, Python. I am not deterred, however. I think I shall take a stab at Clojure... lastly: why is smalltalk not ready for primetime? Smalltalk is not ready for primetime because its ecosystem is rather limited in size and scope. It is not easy to share Smalltalk libraries, esp. given that there is no one de facto standard Smalltalk to which library developers can write. Without a healthy ecosystem, most companies will not see Smalltalk as a viable development platform. This is why Java, C++, and JavaScript keep beating us over the head with it. Cheers, Richard You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "amber-lang" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [hidden email]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. |
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