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Kapital (the Smalltalk system) wasn't much of an influence on Athena. Athena was very much a SecDB/Slang derived effort. And Kapital was an interesting experim
by lucozade 6y ago
Kapital (the Smalltalk system) wasn't much of an influence on Athena. Athena was very much a SecDB/Slang derived effort.
And Kapital was an interesting experiment but rightfully died. Smalltalk just wasn't the right environment for something that complex and scale. I'd expect most lisps to suffer in the same way. And TBH it was more the image based model rather than the dynamic language per se though that was an issue.
There's a point where dynamism becomes a liability and Kapital went way beyond that point. Python fares a bit better but still, a huge effort is needed to control its failings at scale. This isn't helped at all by sticking a DAG in the middle of it as was done with Athena and its ilk. This all can be made to work but in the "cos its Turing complete" sense rather than the language helping in any meaningful way.
Source: I suffered through it.
- FabHK 6y ago> This all can be made to work but in the "cos its Turing complete" sense rather than the language helping in any meaningful way. I had to LOL. You have very nicely put into words an experience I bet many have had.
- JackFr 6y agoKapital was also rewritten in Java and survived in a few successor places ('Derivatives Studio' at CSFB). There it was my introduction to 'thunks'.
- eru 6y ago> I'd expect most lisps to suffer in the same way. Why? Eg Scheme or even the uglier Common Lisp are quite disciplined. And Clojure ain't too bad either. As far as I can tell, Lispers don't usually go around monkey-patching things.