Smalltalk inspired the languages I grew up with. I'd say that they're worthy successors. I was introduced to programming at school using LOGO when I was 7 year

Smalltalk inspired the languages I grew up with. I'd say that they're worthy successors. I was introduced to programming at school using LOGO when I was 7 years old. My dad found a broken Mac Plus and told me I could keep it if I could fix it. So I learned basic hardware repair (swap out the motherboard). Having my own computer gave me a sense of responsibility and independence that I never had before. When I was 11, he bought me an iBook. I also saved up my pocket money (allowance) for an iPod. I wanted more apps on the iPod, and was interested in the Notes feature. I taught myself AppleScript to scrape websites and convert the HTML to 1000-character iPod Notes TXT files. This included my English textbooks - I read Shakespeare on an iPod in 2003 so I didn't need to carry a heavy book. I also wrote many scripts for iTunes. All of this was self-taught, without textbooks or YouTube or tutorials online. It was even before StackOverflow. How did I learn? The syntax is easy. There's a single button to compile & run. The code is auto-formatted in colour. And there are lots of APIs to every other app. As a Computer Science class project, I spent months writing a database program for SMS messages using Java. But for myself, I spent half a day coding a converter AppleScript to put those SMS text files into blank MP3s and store them with iTunes. All the fancy features (smart playlists, playlist folders) were already done! Programming is not scripting - you have to use libraries instead of leveraging other apps. But I see the successor to SmallTalk being a scripting language with a lot of APIs. Like AppleScript, but with better support for cross-platform and GUIs.