5 ms·

For reference: http://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Kay1977.pdf http://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Kay1977.pdf. Modern Smalltalk is quite different from Sma

For reference: http://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Kay1977.pdf http://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Kay1977.pdf. Modern Smalltalk is quite different from Smalltalk-76, to the chagrin of Kay. I agree on the Lisp part, textual syntax is nice for human understanding but will one day be no longer necessary. If only they had made a cheap Lisp machine!

kkfx 5y ago
> textual syntax is nice for human understanding but will one day be no longer necessary Can you elaborate your vision? What future you imaging in human-computer UI terms? Visual programming so far have well proved to be a failure, modern visual programming is even worse than past tentative (see how crappy are visual environment from RPA to NodeRed&c)... Vocal interfaces are also crappy... Even if we look at sci-fi movies the computer interfaces they show are ridiculously inefficient... Just see Star Trek as an example: vocal commands in emergency situations that demands multiple seconds while a direct hit on keys demands just few ms, the Borg with neural connections and visual+touch UIs in their ships etc. Oh that's sci-fi of course but that means that even artists have so far failed to imaging different means. > If only they had made a cheap Lisp machine! At that time was not possible in scale and industrial terms, similar to the far older Xerox workstations, it's possible now, but too many do not even know that original desktop model and MANY (very skilled PhDs included) have even issues imagining it... Just myself using Emacs/EXWM in a presentation I generally create an extraordinary WOW effect on techies who fail to understand what they see live on the screen/projector, how is that possible, and there is nothing extraordinary, just EXWM/org-mode normal usage. That's the real issue, in common with Smalltalk: people who can understand do not know, people who can push classic model again do not want it at all, it hurt they skyrocketing high businesses (and curiously old business were in relative terms more profitable for anyone, only they do not assure by any means the possibility do dominate the market since being knowledge-based anyone who happen to have developed something good can succeed), the large mass of the rest of humanity do not even know what happen yesterday so...
- rileyphone 5y ago
  Much of the power of Lisp lies in its homoiconicity, but it also means the syntax is "just a bunch of parens" - a ball of mud is hard to parse. Structured editing negates this by changing the view layer from text to something richer and more specified to the form, but still in the same basic shape as the code, which is harder to do with C-like languages. Most of what's needed is a fully integrated development environment such that the language and editor are created in unison, like many Lisp efforts of old.
  - kkfx 5y ago
    Hum, personally as an Emacs-er and not a developer Lisp for me is just a nice user-programming tool, a way that allow me to insert and run code for many things I need inside notes, running it on click, on a keybind, on file save/open etc that's it's power. With C-like languages I can't do the same, they need compilation, they can't live in a live REPL, even a hello world is many SLoC etc. Unix (CLI) offer shell scripting for small automation, lost it with GUIs, while classical systems (Smalltalk and Lisp based) can perfectly and effectively. If those language for crafting complete OSes are complex and slow I do not care much because the outcome of something like http://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Kay1977.pdf http://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Kay1977.pdf is so powerful that's absolutely worth the effort and seen actual systems that essentially fails to innovate at least since the '80s...

kkfx 5y ago

> textual syntax is nice for human understanding but will one day be no longer necessary Can you elaborate your vision? What future you imaging in human-computer UI terms? Visual programming so far have well proved to be a failure, modern visual programming is even worse than past tentative (see how crappy are visual environment from RPA to NodeRed&c)... Vocal interfaces are also crappy... Even if we look at sci-fi movies the computer interfaces they show are ridiculously inefficient... Just see Star Trek as an example: vocal commands in emergency situations that demands multiple seconds while a direct hit on keys demands just few ms, the Borg with neural connections and visual+touch UIs in their ships etc. Oh that's sci-fi of course but that means that even artists have so far failed to imaging different means. > If only they had made a cheap Lisp machine! At that time was not possible in scale and industrial terms, similar to the far older Xerox workstations, it's possible now, but too many do not even know that original desktop model and MANY (very skilled PhDs included) have even issues imagining it... Just myself using Emacs/EXWM in a presentation I generally create an extraordinary WOW effect on techies who fail to understand what they see live on the screen/projector, how is that possible, and there is nothing extraordinary, just EXWM/org-mode normal usage. That's the real issue, in common with Smalltalk: people who can understand do not know, people who can push classic model again do not want it at all, it hurt they skyrocketing high businesses (and curiously old business were in relative terms more profitable for anyone, only they do not assure by any means the possibility do dominate the market since being knowledge-based anyone who happen to have developed something good can succeed), the large mass of the rest of humanity do not even know what happen yesterday so...

rileyphone 5y ago
Much of the power of Lisp lies in its homoiconicity, but it also means the syntax is "just a bunch of parens" - a ball of mud is hard to parse. Structured editing negates this by changing the view layer from text to something richer and more specified to the form, but still in the same basic shape as the code, which is harder to do with C-like languages. Most of what's needed is a fully integrated development environment such that the language and editor are created in unison, like many Lisp efforts of old.
- kkfx 5y ago
  Hum, personally as an Emacs-er and not a developer Lisp for me is just a nice user-programming tool, a way that allow me to insert and run code for many things I need inside notes, running it on click, on a keybind, on file save/open etc that's it's power. With C-like languages I can't do the same, they need compilation, they can't live in a live REPL, even a hello world is many SLoC etc. Unix (CLI) offer shell scripting for small automation, lost it with GUIs, while classical systems (Smalltalk and Lisp based) can perfectly and effectively. If those language for crafting complete OSes are complex and slow I do not care much because the outcome of something like http://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Kay1977.pdf http://augmentingcognition.com/assets/Kay1977.pdf is so powerful that's absolutely worth the effort and seen actual systems that essentially fails to innovate at least since the '80s...