OK that's true

Post #106,856 by tuberculosis 6/22/03 12:17:49 AM Reply	OK that's true it was some guy on the Artemis weblogs that asserted that Java syntax is more "natural" than Smalltalk. But the narrative thing I think I still disagree with. Smalltalk can be read out loud and understood. You can't say the same thing about java. dictionary at: x put: y. is a narrative. map.put(x,y) is much more cryptic about what is going on. The really funny thing about Smalltalk is that it was designed to be used by children. For the most part, they get it. Its a little above some children - but not so far. Check out some of the kid projects at [link\|http://www.squeakland.org\|http://www.squeakland.org] to see kids programming robots using Smalltalk. So my point is going to remain that its the biases instilled in the programmer by the more "conventional" languages that make Smalltalk "hard". You don't need to use all the depth. You can go as deep as you like and still get things done. "One of the main causes of the fall of the Roman Empire was that, lacking zero, they had no way to indicate successful termination of their C programs." -- Robert Firth
Post #106,866 by JimWeirich 6/22/03 1:09:55 AM Reply	Smalltalk for Small Tykes The really funny thing about Smalltalk is that it was designed to be used by children. I was teaching my 10 year old daughter Smalltalk at one point. I would have never considered using C or C++ instead. -- -- Jim Weirich jweirich@one.net [link\|http://onestepback.org\|http://onestepback.org] --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Donald Knuth (in a memo to Peter van Emde Boas)
Post #106,882 by Arkadiy 6/22/03 12:02:45 PM Reply	Wrong sense of "narrative". May be I am misusing the word. In your example, Smalltalk and C++ are actually rather equivalent. In my examples, they are vastly different. Simple syntax in C causes simple conceptual things to happen. Everybody knows what "if-then-else" means. In Samlltalk, simple syntax causes conceptually complex[] things to happen, even if the result is the same as for simple things. For example, my insufficient knowlege of Smalltalk fails me when I think of if-then-else statement: is it blah ifTrue:[thenpart] ifFalse:[elsepart]. or is it blah ifTrue:[thenpart]; ifFalse:[elsepart]. (I suspect it's the second one) It depends on what returned from ifXXX: : result of block or self. I know where to look for the answer. Somebody who just expects C++ syntax does not. He/she will grumble about dumb computers. Another example: how do you do chained ifs? You should not have to, but what if you do? I can see that Smalltalk has to have a better primitive for that than nested blocks. I'd go looking in True and False classes, or in collections. If it's not there, I'll write it. The other kind of programmer will simply write it off oas computer's stupidity and use the inconvenient nested blocks. [] "complex" in certain sence. I am comfortable with Smalltalk complexity, but I am lost with computational mathematics, which is also called complex. And I've seen really smart people who have it the other way around. "Average programmer" can be extremely smart person, and still not grock Smalltalk/Lisp way. -- Less Is More. In my book, About Face, I introduce over 50 powerful design axioms. This is one of them. --Alan Cooper. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
Post #106,883 by Arkadiy 6/22/03 12:07:50 PM Reply	(Oops) Serves me right for posting before checking. Of course, Smalltalk has ifTrueifFalse method. I think my ideas still stand, though :). -- Less Is More. In my book, About Face, I introduce over 50 powerful design axioms. This is one of them. --Alan Cooper. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum

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