4 ms·

It is worse on phones, but most desktop computing feels like this too, at least when you're not at a command line. I've been trying to puzzle out what I'd like

It is worse on phones, but most desktop computing feels like this too, at least when you're not at a command line. I've been trying to puzzle out what I'd like computing to look like instead, but I don't get far beyond a concept of "objects" and "actions" as fundamental building blocks. How to actually expose this... yeah, it's tough.

PaulHoule 1y ago
There's a tension between the bash economy which is too simple but pleasantly terse and the powershell economy which has a richer data structure but feels painfully verbose.
jynelson 1y ago
have you seen https://pharo.org/ https://pharo.org/ by chance? it's a smalltalk IDE built in smalltalk, which means that the whole thing is editable at runtime. it's hard to describe before you see it, https://pharo.org/features https://pharo.org/features has some demos.
- mapcars 1y ago
  I tried pharo, its an interesting thing but I don't see it as a particularly practical solution. Yes its editable in runtime, but not the whole thing and not reliably so: I remember changing some low level array methods that broke the whole image. Even in pharo your data has to be organised in some way and if you add new code to existing image you have to know how to reach the data you need. And the biggest downside to productivity and stability is it doesn't have a type system and every action can fail because the receiver doesn't support a particular message.
  - igouy 1y ago
    Doesn't editing "the whole thing" include edits that break stuff? > data has to be organised in some way Yes it does.
- igouy 1y ago
  Smalltalk implementations usually do support live coding "allowing developers to modify and experiment with code while the program is running". https://www.cincom.com/blog/smalltalk/smalltalk-programming-language/ https://www.cincom.com/blog/smalltalk/smalltalk-programming-...
coldpie 1y ago
COM, buddy! Publish your interface with a known UUID, anyone can claim support for your interface in the system registry, there's a standard way to initialize libraries and pull objects supporting the interface out of it, so now you can pull other peoples' applications into yours, without knowing anything about their software. This is used _all over the place_ on Windows, for things like arbitrary cross-application embedding and context menu support... at least before we realized we miiiight want to have some notion of "computer security". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/com/com-technical-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/com/com-tech...

PaulHoule 1y ago

There's a tension between the bash economy which is too simple but pleasantly terse and the powershell economy which has a richer data structure but feels painfully verbose.

jynelson 1y ago

have you seen https://pharo.org/ https://pharo.org/ by chance? it's a smalltalk IDE built in smalltalk, which means that the whole thing is editable at runtime. it's hard to describe before you see it, https://pharo.org/features https://pharo.org/features has some demos.

mapcars 1y ago
I tried pharo, its an interesting thing but I don't see it as a particularly practical solution. Yes its editable in runtime, but not the whole thing and not reliably so: I remember changing some low level array methods that broke the whole image. Even in pharo your data has to be organised in some way and if you add new code to existing image you have to know how to reach the data you need. And the biggest downside to productivity and stability is it doesn't have a type system and every action can fail because the receiver doesn't support a particular message.
- igouy 1y ago
  Doesn't editing "the whole thing" include edits that break stuff? > data has to be organised in some way Yes it does.
igouy 1y ago
Smalltalk implementations usually do support live coding "allowing developers to modify and experiment with code while the program is running". https://www.cincom.com/blog/smalltalk/smalltalk-programming-language/ https://www.cincom.com/blog/smalltalk/smalltalk-programming-...

coldpie 1y ago

COM, buddy! Publish your interface with a known UUID, anyone can claim support for your interface in the system registry, there's a standard way to initialize libraries and pull objects supporting the interface out of it, so now you can pull other peoples' applications into yours, without knowing anything about their software. This is used _all over the place_ on Windows, for things like arbitrary cross-application embedding and context menu support... at least before we realized we miiiight want to have some notion of "computer security". https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/com/com-technical-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/com/com-tech...