8 ms·

The Evolution of Smalltalk from Smalltalk-72 to Squeak [video]

228 points by gjvc 5y ago

msie 5y ago
I wanted to check out Squeak so I went to the squeak.org website and ran into so many broken links on the wiki.
- zelphirkalt 5y ago
  Not sure about any other implications, but you could check out Pharo, which is much more active than Squeak development.
- bastardoperator 5y ago
  I noticed the same thing too, I just ended up copying the link and they work just fine.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  Neither Squeak or Pharo have well maintained website and searching for documentation via google is very hit and miss. Pharo is worth downloading and playing with though. The old, main commercial implemention of Smalltalk is available through Cincom. VisualWorks was just about to take over the object world before Java was released: https://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/ https://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/ I have been blogging about it recently here: https://smackeyacky.blogspot.com/ https://smackeyacky.blogspot.com/
- dtlewis290 5y ago
  I have been working with Squeak for many years. It's stable, evolving, and always interesting. I'm also a big fan of Cuis, but Squeak is still my personal favorite.
- isr 5y ago
  To complement the Pharo recommendation, I would also recommend cuis smalltalk. It also forked from squeak, but went on an aggressive diet, shedding much complexity in the base image, and modularising (using git) much of the rest. Smalltalk newcomers may find cuis is easier to "digest" and get to grips with. Having used pharo and squeak myself, I find myself preferring cuis for more serious development. YMMV. - full instructions on install & first steps at [main cuis repo](https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev) - ["The Cuis Book"](https://cuis-smalltalk.github.io/TheCuisBook/index.html https://cuis-smalltalk.github.io/TheCuisBook/index.html) - [cuis docs repo](https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Learning-Cuis https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Learning-Cuis) - [cuis related repos on github](https://github.com/search?o=desc&p=1&q=cuis-smalltalk&s=updated&type=Repositories https://github.com/search?o=desc&p=1&q=cuis-smalltalk&s=upda...)
diskzero 5y ago
The most active Smalltalk inspired community seems to be Pharo. https://pharo.org https://pharo.org I have avoided calling Pharo "Smalltalk" as it has evolved from the original fork of Squeak and the project is evolving and modifying from its Smalltalk origins. My personal favorite language that has evolved from Smalltalk is Newspeak. https://newspeaklanguage.org https://newspeaklanguage.org The current version runs on top of WASM and can be used in a web browser. Gilad Bracha is going some exciting and interesting things with this language.
- virtualwhys 5y ago
  > Gilad Bracha is going some exciting and interesting things with this language. Hopefully not in the same way that Dart turned out to be so "exciting and interesting" :)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bradrn 5y ago
    What’s wrong with Dart? (Don’t know anything about the language, just curious.)
    - igouy 5y ago
      Nothing much. Perhaps a question of expectations: "The big question is whether Google originally intended Dart to replace JavaScript". https://insights.dice.com/2019/03/27/fall-rise-dart-google-javascript-killer/ https://insights.dice.com/2019/03/27/fall-rise-dart-google-j...
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    so far ~socially Dart has failed but the language is actually way more interesting than I thought it would ...
    - andrea81 5y ago
mastrsushi 5y ago
Smallcock-69
- dang 5y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? You've been doing it a lot, unfortunately, and we ban that sort of account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
hencq 5y ago
I was surprised to see that Smalltalk-72 was actually a much different language. In some ways it reminded me of Lisp macros and a bit of stack languages like Forth. This document [0] and especially Appendix II in this pdf [1] explain it well. Essentially an object just gets the unparsed message sent to it for it to do what it wants. So the code for an object basically parses the raw symbols to figure out what message to respond to. [0] http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk [1] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/worrydream/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/master/SmalltalkHistoryHOPL-scanned-2015-07-16.pdf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/worrydream/EarlyHistoryOfS...
- scroot 5y ago
  If you are curious for more details, here is the Smalltalk-72 manual that Kay and Goldberg wrote at PARC: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Smalltalk-72_Instruction_Manual_Mar76.pdf http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Smalltal...
- jecel 5y ago
  The first Actor languages were inspired by Smalltalk-72 and make a lot more sense if you are familiar with -72 and less for those who only know Smalltalk-80.
  - ProfHewitt 5y ago
    Excellent video by Dan Ingalls on the Xerox early history of Smalltalk. In November 1972, Alan Kay gave an inspiring seminar at MIT on Smalltalk-72. There were ongoing discussions during the weeks after the lecture about the following: Dennis and van Horn capabilities Petri nets Smalltalk-72 Simula, which was strangely very different from Smalltalk-72 the Internet etc.) After extensive discussion about limitations of previous efforts, we realized that there is a single abstraction that provided the foundation for all of computation which it was decided to name the "Actors Abstraction". The Actors Paradigm covers all of digital computation and consequently is more powerful than Church/Turing Paradigm. Although the use of bitmap displays with Smalltak-72 was very impressive, Smalltalk-72 left a great deal to be desired as a programming language. Later Smalltalk designs were completely different because they adopted the Simula class hierarchy instead of the byte stream interpreter of Smalltalk72 Limitations of Smalltalk72 reinforced the decision to not define the fundamental abstraction of computation using a programming language. Instead computation should be defined axiomatically in terms of fundamental concepts including Actors Computational Events Partial order on computational events Regions of mutual exclusion Event induction as the foundation for proving properties of Actors Systems See the following on how to axiomatically define computation using the Actors Abstraction: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3418003 https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3418003 https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3459566 https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3459566 Also, see the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJP1VL7shiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJP1VL7shiI
blihp 5y ago
Fantastic video. Most of the previous talks I've seen Dan give started with Smalltalk-78 or maybe briefly touched on Smalltalk-76 before spending the bulk of their time on the later versions. So I very much appreciated the time he spent on the early Smalltalk implementations (Smalltalk-76 and earlier) as it filled out the picture of how Smalltalk evolved.
offByJuan 5y ago
The threshold for starting new research projects from scrath is getting much higher all the time. When Smalltalk was developed you could implement most of the software stack in a quite small team in a few years. I’m not sure that is possible anymore if you want to connect to outer world eg. web. You will create dependencies out of your control quite fast. These dependencies will shape design decisions. Lowest common denominator rules and fighting that will take considerable resources and effort. I think this is one reason we are stuck with Unix like file based systems for most foreseeable future

228 points by gjvc 5y ago

msie 5y ago

I wanted to check out Squeak so I went to the squeak.org website and ran into so many broken links on the wiki.

zelphirkalt 5y ago
Not sure about any other implications, but you could check out Pharo, which is much more active than Squeak development.
bastardoperator 5y ago
I noticed the same thing too, I just ended up copying the link and they work just fine.
smackeyacky 5y ago
Neither Squeak or Pharo have well maintained website and searching for documentation via google is very hit and miss. Pharo is worth downloading and playing with though. The old, main commercial implemention of Smalltalk is available through Cincom. VisualWorks was just about to take over the object world before Java was released: https://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/ https://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/ I have been blogging about it recently here: https://smackeyacky.blogspot.com/ https://smackeyacky.blogspot.com/
dtlewis290 5y ago
I have been working with Squeak for many years. It's stable, evolving, and always interesting. I'm also a big fan of Cuis, but Squeak is still my personal favorite.
isr 5y ago
To complement the Pharo recommendation, I would also recommend cuis smalltalk. It also forked from squeak, but went on an aggressive diet, shedding much complexity in the base image, and modularising (using git) much of the rest. Smalltalk newcomers may find cuis is easier to "digest" and get to grips with. Having used pharo and squeak myself, I find myself preferring cuis for more serious development. YMMV. - full instructions on install & first steps at [main cuis repo](https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev) - ["The Cuis Book"](https://cuis-smalltalk.github.io/TheCuisBook/index.html https://cuis-smalltalk.github.io/TheCuisBook/index.html) - [cuis docs repo](https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Learning-Cuis https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Learning-Cuis) - [cuis related repos on github](https://github.com/search?o=desc&p=1&q=cuis-smalltalk&s=updated&type=Repositories https://github.com/search?o=desc&p=1&q=cuis-smalltalk&s=upda...)

diskzero 5y ago

The most active Smalltalk inspired community seems to be Pharo. https://pharo.org https://pharo.org I have avoided calling Pharo "Smalltalk" as it has evolved from the original fork of Squeak and the project is evolving and modifying from its Smalltalk origins. My personal favorite language that has evolved from Smalltalk is Newspeak. https://newspeaklanguage.org https://newspeaklanguage.org The current version runs on top of WASM and can be used in a web browser. Gilad Bracha is going some exciting and interesting things with this language.

virtualwhys 5y ago
> Gilad Bracha is going some exciting and interesting things with this language. Hopefully not in the same way that Dart turned out to be so "exciting and interesting" :)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bradrn 5y ago
  What’s wrong with Dart? (Don’t know anything about the language, just curious.)
  - igouy 5y ago
    Nothing much. Perhaps a question of expectations: "The big question is whether Google originally intended Dart to replace JavaScript". https://insights.dice.com/2019/03/27/fall-rise-dart-google-javascript-killer/ https://insights.dice.com/2019/03/27/fall-rise-dart-google-j...
- agumonkey 5y ago
  so far ~socially Dart has failed but the language is actually way more interesting than I thought it would ...
  - andrea81 5y ago

mastrsushi 5y ago

Smallcock-69

dang 5y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? You've been doing it a lot, unfortunately, and we ban that sort of account. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

hencq 5y ago

I was surprised to see that Smalltalk-72 was actually a much different language. In some ways it reminded me of Lisp macros and a bit of stack languages like Forth. This document [0] and especially Appendix II in this pdf [1] explain it well. Essentially an object just gets the unparsed message sent to it for it to do what it wants. So the code for an object basically parses the raw symbols to figure out what message to respond to. [0] http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk [1] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/worrydream/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/master/SmalltalkHistoryHOPL-scanned-2015-07-16.pdf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/worrydream/EarlyHistoryOfS...

scroot 5y ago
If you are curious for more details, here is the Smalltalk-72 manual that Kay and Goldberg wrote at PARC: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Smalltalk-72_Instruction_Manual_Mar76.pdf http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/Smalltal...
jecel 5y ago
The first Actor languages were inspired by Smalltalk-72 and make a lot more sense if you are familiar with -72 and less for those who only know Smalltalk-80.
- ProfHewitt 5y ago
  Excellent video by Dan Ingalls on the Xerox early history of Smalltalk. In November 1972, Alan Kay gave an inspiring seminar at MIT on Smalltalk-72. There were ongoing discussions during the weeks after the lecture about the following: Dennis and van Horn capabilities Petri nets Smalltalk-72 Simula, which was strangely very different from Smalltalk-72 the Internet etc.) After extensive discussion about limitations of previous efforts, we realized that there is a single abstraction that provided the foundation for all of computation which it was decided to name the "Actors Abstraction". The Actors Paradigm covers all of digital computation and consequently is more powerful than Church/Turing Paradigm. Although the use of bitmap displays with Smalltak-72 was very impressive, Smalltalk-72 left a great deal to be desired as a programming language. Later Smalltalk designs were completely different because they adopted the Simula class hierarchy instead of the byte stream interpreter of Smalltalk72 Limitations of Smalltalk72 reinforced the decision to not define the fundamental abstraction of computation using a programming language. Instead computation should be defined axiomatically in terms of fundamental concepts including Actors Computational Events Partial order on computational events Regions of mutual exclusion Event induction as the foundation for proving properties of Actors Systems See the following on how to axiomatically define computation using the Actors Abstraction: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3418003 https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3418003 https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3459566 https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3459566 Also, see the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJP1VL7shiI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJP1VL7shiI

blihp 5y ago

Fantastic video. Most of the previous talks I've seen Dan give started with Smalltalk-78 or maybe briefly touched on Smalltalk-76 before spending the bulk of their time on the later versions. So I very much appreciated the time he spent on the early Smalltalk implementations (Smalltalk-76 and earlier) as it filled out the picture of how Smalltalk evolved.

offByJuan 5y ago

The threshold for starting new research projects from scrath is getting much higher all the time. When Smalltalk was developed you could implement most of the software stack in a quite small team in a few years. I’m not sure that is possible anymore if you want to connect to outer world eg. web. You will create dependencies out of your control quite fast. These dependencies will shape design decisions. Lowest common denominator rules and fighting that will take considerable resources and effort. I think this is one reason we are stuck with Unix like file based systems for most foreseeable future