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I was expecting the author to mention Smalltalk because I distinctly remember people praising Smalltalk for its IDE but I think the IDE I was thinking of is fro

by hnbad 3y ago

I was expecting the author to mention Smalltalk because I distinctly remember people praising Smalltalk for its IDE but I think the IDE I was thinking of is from the late 90s or early 00s.

rwmj 3y ago
I don't think SmallTalk ever had a TUI. Even the very early versions on the Xerox machines used a GUI, and that GUI persisted even when it was all ported to Solaris.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  Oberon was this weird mix where you had a proper GUI on thr screen but it would basically only show text. You could run commands by selecting text from inside any arbitrary window. The plan9 OS and Acme editor have kept this workflow.
- xkriva11 3y ago
  Digitalk had Smalltalk TUI for DOS named Methods. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ET8sPbsXQAAcgpb?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ET8sPbsXQAAcgpb?format=jpg&name=...
- hnbad 3y ago
  The title of the article doesn't mention TUIs (or UIs at all) but I was thinking of a GUI. Specifically it seems I was likely thinking of Pharo (which is '00s not '90s so off by a decade).
  - igouy 3y ago
    The article subtitle is: "A deep dive into the text mode editors we had and how they compare to today's". The second paragraph says: "This time around, I want to look at the pure text-based IDEs that we had in that era before Windows eclipsed the PC industry."
mananaysiempre 3y ago
An interesting continuation of that evolutionary line is the Open Dylan IDE: https://opendylan.org/history/apple-dylan/screenshots/index.html https://opendylan.org/history/apple-dylan/screenshots/index....; the deconstruction of the object browser / Miller columns seems interesting even as a general UI concept.
tcard 3y ago
I think it's fair to say Smalltalk(s) have had in many aspects the most advanced IDE in existence at every moment since its introduction. Demos for a couple old versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqKyHEJe9_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqKyHEJe9_w Demo for Pharo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baxtyeFVn3w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baxtyeFVn3w
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Not only Smalltalk, all Xerox PARC Workstations Interlisp-D, Mesa (XDE) and Mesa/Cedar, all shared same ideas with Smalltalk, regarding developer tooling. Same on Genera with Lisp Machines.
masklinn 3y ago
> I think the IDE I was thinking of is from the late 90s or early 00s. Smalltalk's from the 70s and 80s, and almost certainly had what you're thinking about given it's where both Microsoft and Apple got their foundational ideas (restricted to significantly less powerful hardware), and later unrelated smalltalks retained a lot of now quirky considerations and behaviours. Self inherited a lot of those and is from the late 80s. So yes, I was also expecting the author to talk about Smalltalk.
- eschaton 3y ago
  If you actually look at Xerox’s hardware, it’s quite a stretch to call Lisa or Macintosh “less powerful.” It’s kind of amazing what Xerox was able to accomplish on such underpowered systems; they did it largely by having multitasking microcode to handle performance-sensitive I/O, and implementing BitBlt there too.
010101010101 3y ago
I suspect there are quite a few more niche languages/interfaces that the author didn’t consider when it comes to GUI IDEs. I thought of EiffelStudio immediately, myself, having worked with a group that used it in a past life.

by hnbad 3y ago

I was expecting the author to mention Smalltalk because I distinctly remember people praising Smalltalk for its IDE but I think the IDE I was thinking of is from the late 90s or early 00s.

rwmj 3y ago

I don't think SmallTalk ever had a TUI. Even the very early versions on the Xerox machines used a GUI, and that GUI persisted even when it was all ported to Solaris.

zozbot234 3y ago
Oberon was this weird mix where you had a proper GUI on thr screen but it would basically only show text. You could run commands by selecting text from inside any arbitrary window. The plan9 OS and Acme editor have kept this workflow.
xkriva11 3y ago
Digitalk had Smalltalk TUI for DOS named Methods. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ET8sPbsXQAAcgpb?format=jpg&name=4096x4096 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ET8sPbsXQAAcgpb?format=jpg&name=...
hnbad 3y ago
The title of the article doesn't mention TUIs (or UIs at all) but I was thinking of a GUI. Specifically it seems I was likely thinking of Pharo (which is '00s not '90s so off by a decade).
- igouy 3y ago
  The article subtitle is: "A deep dive into the text mode editors we had and how they compare to today's". The second paragraph says: "This time around, I want to look at the pure text-based IDEs that we had in that era before Windows eclipsed the PC industry."

mananaysiempre 3y ago

An interesting continuation of that evolutionary line is the Open Dylan IDE: https://opendylan.org/history/apple-dylan/screenshots/index.html https://opendylan.org/history/apple-dylan/screenshots/index....; the deconstruction of the object browser / Miller columns seems interesting even as a general UI concept.

tcard 3y ago

I think it's fair to say Smalltalk(s) have had in many aspects the most advanced IDE in existence at every moment since its introduction. Demos for a couple old versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqKyHEJe9_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqKyHEJe9_w Demo for Pharo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baxtyeFVn3w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baxtyeFVn3w

pjmlp 3y ago
Not only Smalltalk, all Xerox PARC Workstations Interlisp-D, Mesa (XDE) and Mesa/Cedar, all shared same ideas with Smalltalk, regarding developer tooling. Same on Genera with Lisp Machines.

masklinn 3y ago

> I think the IDE I was thinking of is from the late 90s or early 00s. Smalltalk's from the 70s and 80s, and almost certainly had what you're thinking about given it's where both Microsoft and Apple got their foundational ideas (restricted to significantly less powerful hardware), and later unrelated smalltalks retained a lot of now quirky considerations and behaviours. Self inherited a lot of those and is from the late 80s. So yes, I was also expecting the author to talk about Smalltalk.

eschaton 3y ago
If you actually look at Xerox’s hardware, it’s quite a stretch to call Lisa or Macintosh “less powerful.” It’s kind of amazing what Xerox was able to accomplish on such underpowered systems; they did it largely by having multitasking microcode to handle performance-sensitive I/O, and implementing BitBlt there too.

010101010101 3y ago

I suspect there are quite a few more niche languages/interfaces that the author didn’t consider when it comes to GUI IDEs. I thought of EiffelStudio immediately, myself, having worked with a group that used it in a past life.