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Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
- Psyladine 7y ago> #($a #a 'a' 1 1.0) A syntax so easy, you can teach your grandma in 15 minutes.
- louiscyphre 7y agoIndeed, you can. The first thing to learn here is that the hash (#) signifies a literal symbol. So, #a is a symbol, whereas 'a' is a string (of length 1 and containing the character $a). The second thing to learn is that the dollar sign ($) signifies a character value, so $b is the value of the character "b" and $c is the value of the character "c". #() signifies a literal array created at compile time. Thus, #($a #a 'a' 1 1.0) is an array that contains the character $a, the symbol #a, the string 'a', the integer 1, and the floating value 1.0). Easy peasy.
- theamk 7y agoSeparate types for literals, characters and strings? That's already more complex than Python, not to mention TCL.
- theamk 7y agoI think of the big problems with Smalltalk is how bad the marketing is. There are few posts which get brought up over and over, and they claim the things that are clearly false ("It can be learned in its entirety within 15 minutes!") or misleading (the one productivity study which is by now decades old.. the claim that it has "simple syntax"). I'd like to encourage Smalltalk advocates to write more "from the trenches" posts. A Haskell is a great comparison: it looks like every few weeks there is a post on using Haskell in production, like [0].. Those posts work much than abstract claims of "tremendous benefits" and "magical language". [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22308771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22308771
- louiscyphre 7y agoThe following tutorial can be finished within 15 minutes: https://amber-lang.net/learn.html https://amber-lang.net/learn.html. Thereafter, you will know the entire syntax of Smalltalk-80. Is there a Python tutorial where you can learn all of Python's syntax within 15 minutes?
- xkriva11 7y agoSorry, all these articles are from a single person with the messianic syndrome who named himself "Mr Smalltalk". He absolutely rejects any complaints about his activities (he repeatedly told us that we do not understand marketing) and he will never be able to write something more solid because he actually is not a Smalltalk programmer and does not know it well. He is making a really bad service.
- louiscyphre 7y agoIf I'm not mistaken, he created the following blog: https://smalltalk.tech.blog/ https://smalltalk.tech.blog/. It contains "solid" articles from Leandro Caniglia and Lorenzo Schiavina. It also contains an article about his recent programming competition (currently under way): https://smalltalk.tech.blog/2020/02/08/the-results-are-in/ https://smalltalk.tech.blog/2020/02/08/the-results-are-in/. This is one heck of a competition, and it's a great promotion for Pharo!
- xkriva11 7y agoIt is not normal to talk about yourself in third person.
- louiscyphre 7y agoHow well does one need to know Smalltalk before they can promote it? I'm a Smalltalk newbie; I've only been using Smalltalk on and off for the past few years. But I absolutely love it! So I'm telling all my friends and colleagues to give Smalltalk a try. Does that invalidate my efforts?
- louiscyphre 7y ago
- pinkfoot 7y agoWhen you add the Gemstone/S transparent object database to the mix is is truly astonishing.