3 ms·

> Whether these languages are useful day-to-day doesn't really matter No. Usefulness does matter because, at the end of the day, programming languages are tool

by claystu 11y ago

> Whether these languages are useful day-to-day doesn't really matter No. Usefulness does matter because, at the end of the day, programming languages are tools, and a useless programming language has no more value than a hammer that breaks if you hit it on anything. It's nice that there are research languages out there that explore new ideas, but Smalltalk 80--the prototype for all modern Smalltalks--was designed and released to be useful day-to-day, and the Smalltalk distributions out there now--Pharo and Squeak--really look like they want to attract users.

chriswarbo 11y ago
> Smalltalk 80--the prototype for all modern Smalltalks--was designed and released to be useful day-to-day That's a straw man. Yes, Smalltalk 80 was designed and released to be useful day-to-day, but it certainly wasn't the prototype. As I understand it, Smalltalk 71 was the first semi-formal definition, and 72 was the first working version. These were designed explicitly for programming language research at Xerox PARC. After After a few iterations, the good ideas were packaged into Smalltalk 80. In fact, Alan Kay actually seems to be disappointed that Smalltalk 80 had such a different goal than earlier Smalltalks. From http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-October/017019.html http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-... > This was why I complained at the last OOPSLA that - whereas at PARC we changed Smalltalk constantly, treating it always as a work in progress - when ST hit the larger world, it was pretty much taken as "something just to be learned", as though it were Pascal or Algol. > Smalltalk-80 never really was mutated into the next better versions of OOP. Given the current low state of programming in general, I think this is a real mistake.
- claystu 11y ago
  So, you're saying that the prototype for Pharo and Squeak was Smalltalk 71 or one of the other, earlier versions of Smalltalk? In any case, I know the early history of Smalltalk too. All I'm saying is that your original point was flawed: the ultimate goal of programming languages is to be useful tools; otherwise, they are merely art. Experimentation during the development of a programming language is an obvious part of inventing them--as experimentation and prototyping is with any tool--but experimentation is not their ultimate goal.
  - chriswarbo 11y ago
    > the ultimate goal of programming languages is to be useful tools; otherwise, they are merely art. Many programming languages exist to be "merely" art; eg. pretty much everything on esolangs.org. There's nothing wrong with that. Also, you're the only one talking about "useful tools". I used the phrase "useful day-to-day" very carefully: for example, space telescopes are "useful tools", but they're not useful for the day-to-day tasks people encounter in the way that a hammer is.
  - igouy 11y ago
    I think the suggestion is that Alan Kay was disappointed that there was no Smalltalk-82, Smalltalk-84 and perhaps disappointed that there was no Smalltalk-04 with all the base libraries re-designed around traits. http://www.ptidej.net/courses/ift6251/fall06/presentations/061122/061122.doc.pdf http://www.ptidej.net/courses/ift6251/fall06/presentations/0... Smalltalk-80 calcified Smalltalk.
    - dllthomas 11y ago
      Skimming, I could not discern the difference between traits and interfaces, although the paper seems to distinguish the two. Could you summarize? I'm interested and I lack the bandwidth for a careful reading at the moment.
      - igouy 11y ago
        You have the reference, read the paper at your leisure.
        dllthomas 11y ago
        I intend to. I don't know if it's what you meant, but I read your comment as overly dismissive. Pulling things out of references makes for better conversation. Of course, if you also don't have time or bandwidth, or it is just really hard to summarize, that is understandable.

by claystu 11y ago

chriswarbo 11y ago

> Smalltalk 80--the prototype for all modern Smalltalks--was designed and released to be useful day-to-day That's a straw man. Yes, Smalltalk 80 was designed and released to be useful day-to-day, but it certainly wasn't the prototype. As I understand it, Smalltalk 71 was the first semi-formal definition, and 72 was the first working version. These were designed explicitly for programming language research at Xerox PARC. After After a few iterations, the good ideas were packaged into Smalltalk 80. In fact, Alan Kay actually seems to be disappointed that Smalltalk 80 had such a different goal than earlier Smalltalks. From http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-October/017019.html http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-... > This was why I complained at the last OOPSLA that - whereas at PARC we changed Smalltalk constantly, treating it always as a work in progress - when ST hit the larger world, it was pretty much taken as "something just to be learned", as though it were Pascal or Algol. > Smalltalk-80 never really was mutated into the next better versions of OOP. Given the current low state of programming in general, I think this is a real mistake.

claystu 11y ago
So, you're saying that the prototype for Pharo and Squeak was Smalltalk 71 or one of the other, earlier versions of Smalltalk? In any case, I know the early history of Smalltalk too. All I'm saying is that your original point was flawed: the ultimate goal of programming languages is to be useful tools; otherwise, they are merely art. Experimentation during the development of a programming language is an obvious part of inventing them--as experimentation and prototyping is with any tool--but experimentation is not their ultimate goal.
- chriswarbo 11y ago
  > the ultimate goal of programming languages is to be useful tools; otherwise, they are merely art. Many programming languages exist to be "merely" art; eg. pretty much everything on esolangs.org. There's nothing wrong with that. Also, you're the only one talking about "useful tools". I used the phrase "useful day-to-day" very carefully: for example, space telescopes are "useful tools", but they're not useful for the day-to-day tasks people encounter in the way that a hammer is.
- igouy 11y ago
  I think the suggestion is that Alan Kay was disappointed that there was no Smalltalk-82, Smalltalk-84 and perhaps disappointed that there was no Smalltalk-04 with all the base libraries re-designed around traits. http://www.ptidej.net/courses/ift6251/fall06/presentations/061122/061122.doc.pdf http://www.ptidej.net/courses/ift6251/fall06/presentations/0... Smalltalk-80 calcified Smalltalk.
  - dllthomas 11y ago
    Skimming, I could not discern the difference between traits and interfaces, although the paper seems to distinguish the two. Could you summarize? I'm interested and I lack the bandwidth for a careful reading at the moment.
    - igouy 11y ago
      You have the reference, read the paper at your leisure.
      - dllthomas 11y ago
        I intend to. I don't know if it's what you meant, but I read your comment as overly dismissive. Pulling things out of references makes for better conversation. Of course, if you also don't have time or bandwidth, or it is just really hard to summarize, that is understandable.