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> Smalltalk is a lovely, lovely language. It's fantastically simple... learning the library is another matter. I think that's a fundamental issue. On the su
by wvenable 11y ago
> Smalltalk is a lovely, lovely language. It's fantastically simple... learning the library is another matter.
I think that's a fundamental issue. On the surface, Smalltalk seems very simple and easy to grasp but as you delve deeper and deeper it gets harder to follow and more magical. Examining how the underlying platform worked made my head spin. I went from a Smalltalk proponent to a detractor the more I learned about it and used it.
I think that's the fundamental problem with every "simple" language; it just forces the complexity to spill out into another layer.
- threatofrain 11y agoThe simpler something is, the more you have to build yourself, though the likelihood is that you'll have to learn some library.
- coliveira 11y agoThat's a horrible reason to hate a language. Every language has layers of complexity. In C++ or Java the complexity is in the compiler, the library and the runtime. In Smalltalk it just happens that the layers are available to everyone to inspect. You are free to inspect or ignore it, but the complexity never really goes away even if you don't see it.
- agumonkey 11y agoSeems like it's a trait shared all these: FORTH, ST, Lisp. They're the logical machine right in your face. No strict classical lexer / parser / language / compiler / binary layering. It's very thin and hackable.