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It's a shame that Smalltalk never gained traction as a system language, and the C/Unix approach took over enterprise-grade development. I wonder what software
by TuringTest 8y ago
It's a shame that Smalltalk never gained traction as a system language, and the C/Unix approach took over enterprise-grade development.
I wonder what software engineering would look like if all the decades-long advancement of tools for stabilization and deployment of code had been researched over platforms that combined system and application code, like Smalltalk did. Instead, we consider both layers as isolated from each other. A lot of work over virtualization and containers seem to be used as a workaround for not having this integrated approach as part of the platform design.
- scroot 8y agoIt could still work really well as the systems environment and language for a personal computing device. One needs to build the proper abstractions and DSLs on top of it, of course, but it would be a much more conducive environment to "literate computing," if that's the goal (and I think it should be).
- TuringTest 8y agoI think a lot of people reading this thread will agree :-) It is definitely an approach more apt to personal computing than to industrial engineering, at least with the level of maturity of the tools available today. The increased ease of use of these environments may be a nice-to-have for professional developers, but they are essential for non-developers.