February 2012 - Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-project] load testing a database

by Philippe Marschall

On 11.02.2012 19:30, Tudor Girba wrote: > Hi, > > Sorry for the late reply, and thanks everyone for the suggestions. > > I did not provide much details because I am new to this domain and I wanted to see from the reactions if maybe I am not missing some relevant direction. > > We are trying to measure how an Oracle database can cope with an increase in usage (basically, there will be more users for the application). Just more users or also more data? Will the users access the database through one application or does each have it's own application? > We are basing our analysis on typical SQL statements coming from the application. We are currently doing load testing by: > - recording sql statements from some use cases that are considered to be important > - generalizing them by replacing actual values with generic variables That shouldn't be necessary, the queries should already contain bind variables (unless your database layer is crap). > - providing meaningful values for the generic variables > - replaying them against the database from several client machines > - consuming the first record from the responses Why only the first? > - reporting the timing of the statements > - recording the CPU, memory and I/O load of the server Oracle already provides tools for many of these things. > However, I am interested in pitfalls, and in the way people interpret the results given that it is hard to determine what is a typical usage in terms of what statements to trigger and at what delays. The yourself a competent Oracle-DBA and probably sysadmin and storage guy as well. No seriously, you wouldn't want to have GemStone benchmarked by someone who has never used Smalltak before, would you? Cheers Philippe

Feb. 11, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] Are Objects really hard?

by Schwab,Wilhelm K

Someone else, who I would bet money the average mainstream programmer would not know, Kent Beck, wrote a fairly nice book. The Gang of Four, and Alpert, Brown and Woolf's "Smalltalk Companion" book are valuable reading. Simon Lewis' Art and Science of Smalltalk is excellent. The point is that people who refuse to read anything more than "Teach Yourself (insert latest fad) in 24 Hour" are perhaps not the best source of wisdom. Bill ________________________________________ From: pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr [pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr] on behalf of Janko MivÅ¡ek [janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si] Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 1:58 PM Cc: 'VWNC'; va-smalltalk(a)googlegroups.com; GNU Smalltalk; Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr; The general-purpose Squeak developers list Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Are Objects really hard? Hi Stef, S, stephane ducasse piÅ¡e: > Frankly I do not care about what other people are thinking. > OOP is a success look at Java, C#. > > Now let us keep our energy to build better Smalltalks. Well, after hard work it is good from time to time to make a retrospection and let our thoughts to think a bit broader, to look from a distance to our work. To see the forest and not just trees. So such debate from time to time is certainly refreshing and needed, specially if it is started from a outsider's perspective. Every wise man listen to the opinion of others. Well, of course wisely :) In this case I see a wise thinking about weaknesses of OO and Smalltalk and how to overcome it by better "best practices". For instance, the newcommers are asking where to find a guidelines for modeling OO domain models in pure OO way. In this guidelines we can emphasise above mentioned best practices, then author's claim that "no one really understands to this day how to do them right" won't be valid much anymore. Best regards Janko > Stef > On Feb 11, 2012, at 1:21 PM, Janko MivÅ¡ek wrote: > >> Hi guys, >> >> Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a >> Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate >> Programming [1] where he said: >> >> "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a >> programming language originally designed to scale from children to >> adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands >> to this day how to do them right...." >> >> He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems >> with inheritance: >> >> "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today: >> confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement, >> of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..." >> >> Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really >> understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely >> inheritance, please. >> >> Best regards >> Janko >> >> [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming >> [2] >> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.ht… >> >> -- >> Janko MivÅ¡ek >> Aida/Web >> Smalltalk Web Application Server >> http://www.aidaweb.si >> > > > _______________________________________________ > help-smalltalk mailing list > help-smalltalk(a)gnu.org > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-smalltalk > -- Janko MivÅ¡ek Svetovalec za informatiko Eranova d.o.o. Ljubljana, Slovenija www.eranova.si tel: 01 514 22 55 faks: 01 514 22 56 gsm: 031 674 565

Feb. 11, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] Are Objects really hard?

by Janko MivÅ¡ek

Hi Stef, S, stephane ducasse piÅ¡e: > Frankly I do not care about what other people are thinking. > OOP is a success look at Java, C#. > > Now let us keep our energy to build better Smalltalks. Well, after hard work it is good from time to time to make a retrospection and let our thoughts to think a bit broader, to look from a distance to our work. To see the forest and not just trees. So such debate from time to time is certainly refreshing and needed, specially if it is started from a outsider's perspective. Every wise man listen to the opinion of others. Well, of course wisely :) In this case I see a wise thinking about weaknesses of OO and Smalltalk and how to overcome it by better "best practices". For instance, the newcommers are asking where to find a guidelines for modeling OO domain models in pure OO way. In this guidelines we can emphasise above mentioned best practices, then author's claim that "no one really understands to this day how to do them right" won't be valid much anymore. Best regards Janko > Stef > On Feb 11, 2012, at 1:21 PM, Janko MivÅ¡ek wrote: > >> Hi guys, >> >> Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a >> Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate >> Programming [1] where he said: >> >> "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a >> programming language originally designed to scale from children to >> adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands >> to this day how to do them right...." >> >> He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems >> with inheritance: >> >> "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today: >> confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement, >> of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..." >> >> Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really >> understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely >> inheritance, please. >> >> Best regards >> Janko >> >> [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming >> [2] >> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.ht… >> >> -- >> Janko MivÅ¡ek >> Aida/Web >> Smalltalk Web Application Server >> http://www.aidaweb.si >> > > > _______________________________________________ > help-smalltalk mailing list > help-smalltalk(a)gnu.org > https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-smalltalk > -- Janko MivÅ¡ek Svetovalec za informatiko Eranova d.o.o. Ljubljana, Slovenija www.eranova.si tel: 01 514 22 55 faks: 01 514 22 56 gsm: 031 674 565

Feb. 11, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

by Schwab,Wilhelm K

Lead by example. +1. ________________________________________ From: pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr [pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr] on behalf of StÃ©phane Ducasse [stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr] Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 1:34 PM To: Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard? Janko Frankly I do not care about what other people are thinking. OOP is a success look at Java, C#. Now let us keep our energy to build better Smalltalks. Stef On Feb 11, 2012, at 2:52 PM, Hernan Wilkinson wrote: > I could not agree more... most programmers don't know what a is closure (for example), have no idea of who is Alan Kay (or worse, Alonso Curch) and they only care about how to use Spring's dependency injection without understanding the real design flaw, or the new Hibernate annotations that will help them to write less "xml code"...... but there is hope :-) > > On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:55 AM, Schwab,Wilhelm K <bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu> wrote: > Yes, programming is hard. It's even harder if one is poorly educated and not well read. I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay. I recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation. > > The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional approaches to software implementation. All they seem to care about is this or that "technology" they saw in a glossy ad. > > Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford? He was on a good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately uttered the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?" I was a little surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he said. > > The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO. > > > From: pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr [pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr] on behalf of Hernan Wilkinson [hernan.wilkinson(a)10pines.com] > Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM > > To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list > Cc: VWNC; va-smalltalk(a)googlegroups.com; GNU Smalltalk; Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard? > > Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-) > > He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-) > > > > > On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko MivÅ¡ek <janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si> wrote: > Hi guys, > > Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a > Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate > Programming [1] where he said: > > "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a > programming language originally designed to scale from children to > adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands > to this day how to do them right...." > > He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems > with inheritance: > > "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today: > confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement, > of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..." > > Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really > understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely > inheritance, please. > > Best regards > Janko > > [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming > [2] > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.ht… > > -- > Janko MivÅ¡ek > Aida/Web > Smalltalk Web Application Server > http://www.aidaweb.si > > > > > -- > HernÃ¡n Wilkinson > Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching > Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207 > email: hernan.wilkinson(a)10Pines.com > site: http://www.10Pines.com > Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina > > > > > -- > HernÃ¡n Wilkinson > Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching > Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207 > email: hernan.wilkinson(a)10Pines.com > site: http://www.10Pines.com > Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina >

Feb. 11, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

Janko Frankly I do not care about what other people are thinking. OOP is a success look at Java, C#. Now let us keep our energy to build better Smalltalks. Stef On Feb 11, 2012, at 2:52 PM, Hernan Wilkinson wrote: > I could not agree more... most programmers don't know what a is closure (for example), have no idea of who is Alan Kay (or worse, Alonso Curch) and they only care about how to use Spring's dependency injection without understanding the real design flaw, or the new Hibernate annotations that will help them to write less "xml code"...... but there is hope :-) > > On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:55 AM, Schwab,Wilhelm K <bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu> wrote: > Yes, programming is hard. It's even harder if one is poorly educated and not well read. I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay. I recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation. > > The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional approaches to software implementation. All they seem to care about is this or that "technology" they saw in a glossy ad. > > Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford? He was on a good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately uttered the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?" I was a little surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he said. > > The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO. > > > From: pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr [pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr] on behalf of Hernan Wilkinson [hernan.wilkinson(a)10pines.com] > Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM > > To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list > Cc: VWNC; va-smalltalk(a)googlegroups.com; GNU Smalltalk; Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard? > > Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-) > > He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-) > > > > > On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko MivÅ¡ek <janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si> wrote: > Hi guys, > > Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a > Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate > Programming [1] where he said: > > "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a > programming language originally designed to scale from children to > adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands > to this day how to do them right...." > > He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems > with inheritance: > > "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today: > confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement, > of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..." > > Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really > understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely > inheritance, please. > > Best regards > Janko > > [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming > [2] > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.ht… > > -- > Janko MivÅ¡ek > Aida/Web > Smalltalk Web Application Server > http://www.aidaweb.si > > > > > -- > HernÃ¡n Wilkinson > Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching > Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207 > email: hernan.wilkinson(a)10Pines.com > site: http://www.10Pines.com > Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina > > > > > -- > HernÃ¡n Wilkinson > Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching > Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207 > email: hernan.wilkinson(a)10Pines.com > site: http://www.10Pines.com > Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina >

Feb. 11, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] load testing a database

by Tudor Girba

Hi, Sorry for the late reply, and thanks everyone for the suggestions. I did not provide much details because I am new to this domain and I wanted to see from the reactions if maybe I am not missing some relevant direction. We are trying to measure how an Oracle database can cope with an increase in usage (basically, there will be more users for the application). We are basing our analysis on typical SQL statements coming from the application. We are currently doing load testing by: - recording sql statements from some use cases that are considered to be important - generalizing them by replacing actual values with generic variables - providing meaningful values for the generic variables - replaying them against the database from several client machines - consuming the first record from the responses - reporting the timing of the statements - recording the CPU, memory and I/O load of the server However, I am interested in pitfalls, and in the way people interpret the results given that it is hard to determine what is a typical usage in terms of what statements to trigger and at what delays. Cheers, Doru On 5 Feb 2012, at 19:02, Philippe Marschall wrote: > On 03.02.2012 16:11, Tudor Girba wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Do you happen to know methods to approach the problem of testing the >> capacity of an application to work with an SQL database? > > Which capacity? > >> In particular, I am interested in simulating concurrent requests >> towards this database that would resemble the interaction coming from >> the application. > > What are you trying to measure? > > Well you know that benchmarking is hard, don't you? I see two possible ways. First recording the SQL statements and then replaying them (have fun with bind parameters). Second just running the application itself. > > Oh yeah, Oracle has a tool named RAT, no idea what the marketing department though there. Maybe you can play similar tricks with PITR in PostgreS. > > Cheers > Philippe > > -- www.tudorgirba.com "Problem solving efficiency grows with the abstractness level of problem understanding."

Feb. 11, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] example preferences startup script Re: 1.4 - better from Jenkins

by Ben Coman

Camillo Bruni wrote: > On 2012-02-10, at 20:06, Ben Coman wrote: > > >> I just realized that clearing up those two ShouldBeImplementeds from DosFileDirectory did not really prove that startup preferences worked on MS Windows. >> So I found the StartupLoader class>>example method >> and did get... 'I should only be displayed once' ...one time only >> and do get... 'I should be displayed each time' ...each time I start Pharo. So its good :) !! >> >> However the 'each time' also dialog comes _every_ time I save the image. Is that desired behaviour? or is it just not finished yet? >> > > see http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=5275 ;) > That fixed it. Thanks Camillo.

Feb. 11, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard?

by Hernan Wilkinson

I could not agree more... most programmers don't know what a is closure (for example), have no idea of who is Alan Kay (or worse, Alonso Curch) and they only care about how to use Spring's dependency injection without understanding the real design flaw, or the new Hibernate annotations that will help them to write less "xml code"...... but there is hope :-) On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:55 AM, Schwab,Wilhelm K <bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu>wrote: > Yes, programming is hard. It's even harder if one is poorly educated > and not well read. I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk > experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in > computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay. I > recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation. > > The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't > intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional approaches > to software implementation. All they seem to care about is this or that > "technology" they saw in a glossy ad. > > Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford? He was on a > good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let > themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately uttered > the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?" I was a little > surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he said. > > The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO. > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr [ > pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr] on behalf of Hernan > Wilkinson [hernan.wilkinson(a)10pines.com] > *Sent:* Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM > > *To:* The general-purpose Squeak developers list > *Cc:* VWNC; va-smalltalk(a)googlegroups.com; GNU Smalltalk; > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > *Subject:* Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard? > > Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really > understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody really > understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-) > > He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it > neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-) > > > > > On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko MivÅ¡ek <janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si>wrote: > >> Hi guys, >> >> Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a >> Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate >> Programming [1] where he said: >> >> "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a >> programming language originally designed to scale from children to >> adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands >> to this day how to do them right...." >> >> He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems >> with inheritance: >> >> "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today: >> confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement, >> of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..." >> >> Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really >> understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely >> inheritance, please. >> >> Best regards >> Janko >> >> [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming >> [2] >> >> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.ht… >> >> -- >> Janko MivÅ¡ek >> Aida/Web >> Smalltalk Web Application Server >> http://www.aidaweb.si >> >> > > > -- > *HernÃ¡n Wilkinson > Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching > Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207 > email: hernan.wilkinson(a)10Pines.com > site: http://www.10Pines.com <http://www.10pines.com/>* > Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina > > -- *HernÃ¡n Wilkinson Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207 email: hernan.wilkinson(a)10Pines.com site: http://www.10Pines.com <http://www.10pines.com/>* Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Feb. 11, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] Are Objects really hard?

by Schwab,Wilhelm K

I think it's "worse" than that. You are correct that relational storage has become a religion. Most deny the flaws and can't even conceive of an alternative, let alone whether an alternative might be better for a given project. But again, this comes down to education, broadening of the mind, and studying alternatives. Mainstream programmers do not engage in those activities, to great cost. Bill ________________________________________ From: pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr [pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr] on behalf of Janko MivÅ¡ek [janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si] Sent: Saturday, February 11, 2012 8:12 AM To: Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr; Squeak; 'VWNC'; GNU Smalltalk Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] Are Objects really hard? Let we remember that Smalltalk was designed for a kids, so "programming is hard anyway" is in my opinion just too simplified answer. While teaching new Smalltalkers I noticed that those without any programming experience got it faster, specially comparing to those with a relational DB experience. Who were and are still part of mainstream. So, maybe it is better to say that established habits and mental models in programmers heads never changed enough to get OO right? To rephrase a bit differently: Hardly anyone is playing OO right because OO was used too long on top of relational world and the ideas of pure OO were forgotten and lost. Best regards Janko S, Schwab,Wilhelm K piÅ¡e: > Yes, programming is hard. It's even harder if one is poorly educated > and not well read. I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk > experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in > computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay. I > recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation. > > The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't > intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional > approaches to software implementation. All they seem to care about is > this or that "technology" they saw in a glossy ad. > > Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford? He was on a > good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let > themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately > uttered the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?" I was a > little surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he > said. > > The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > [pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr] on behalf of Hernan > Wilkinson [hernan.wilkinson(a)10pines.com] > *Sent:* Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM > *To:* The general-purpose Squeak developers list > *Cc:* VWNC; va-smalltalk(a)googlegroups.com; GNU Smalltalk; > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > *Subject:* Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard? > > Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really > understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody > really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-) > > He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it > neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-) > > > > > On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko MivÅ¡ek <janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si > <mailto:janko.mivsek@eranova.si>> wrote: > > Hi guys, > > Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a > Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate > Programming [1] where he said: > > "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a > programming language originally designed to scale from children to > adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands > to this day how to do them right...." > > He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems > with inheritance: > > "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today: > confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement, > of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..." > > Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really > understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely > inheritance, please. > > Best regards > Janko > > [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming > [2] > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.ht… > > -- > Janko MivÅ¡ek > Aida/Web > Smalltalk Web Application Server > http://www.aidaweb.si > > > > > -- > *HernÃ¡n Wilkinson > Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching > Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207 > email: hernan.wilkinson(a)10Pines.com > site: http://www.10Pines.com <http://www.10pines.com/>* > Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina > -- Janko MivÅ¡ek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si

Feb. 11, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] Are Objects really hard?

by Janko MivÅ¡ek

Let we remember that Smalltalk was designed for a kids, so "programming is hard anyway" is in my opinion just too simplified answer. While teaching new Smalltalkers I noticed that those without any programming experience got it faster, specially comparing to those with a relational DB experience. Who were and are still part of mainstream. So, maybe it is better to say that established habits and mental models in programmers heads never changed enough to get OO right? To rephrase a bit differently: Hardly anyone is playing OO right because OO was used too long on top of relational world and the ideas of pure OO were forgotten and lost. Best regards Janko S, Schwab,Wilhelm K piÅ¡e: > Yes, programming is hard. It's even harder if one is poorly educated > and not well read. I don't expect that everyone will have Smalltalk > experience, but I would expect someone nearing completion of a PhD in > computer science to have at least _heard_ of Smalltalk and Alan Kay. I > recently met a very bright count-example to my expectation. > > The average programmer I meet, has no historical perspective, can't > intelligently compare and contrast oo, structured and functional > approaches to software implementation. All they seem to care about is > this or that "technology" they saw in a glossy ad. > > Do you recall a talk Alan gave some years back at Stanford? He was on a > good rant about how our computer science/engineering departments had let > themselves be turned into Java certification mills, and ultimately > uttered the words "what has happened to the mighty Standford?" I was a > little surprised at his candor (took guts) and agreed with every word he > said. > > The problem is PATHETIC education and self-preparation, IMHO. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > [pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr] on behalf of Hernan > Wilkinson [hernan.wilkinson(a)10pines.com] > *Sent:* Saturday, February 11, 2012 7:42 AM > *To:* The general-purpose Squeak developers list > *Cc:* VWNC; va-smalltalk(a)googlegroups.com; GNU Smalltalk; > Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > *Subject:* Re: [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] Are Objects really hard? > > Well... functional programming is hard and not everybody really > understands it... structured programming is hard and not everybody > really understood it... hmm at the end, programming is hard :-) > > He gives no reason about his stament nor "demonstration" of it > neither... so he has a feeling, me too and a completely different one :-) > > > > > On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:21 AM, Janko MivÅ¡ek <janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si > <mailto:janko.mivsek@eranova.si>> wrote: > > Hi guys, > > Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a > Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate > Programming [1] where he said: > > "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a > programming language originally designed to scale from children to > adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands > to this day how to do them right...." > > He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems > with inheritance: > > "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today: > confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement, > of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..." > > Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really > understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely > inheritance, please. > > Best regards > Janko > > [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming > [2] > http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.ht… > > -- > Janko MivÅ¡ek > Aida/Web > Smalltalk Web Application Server > http://www.aidaweb.si > > > > > -- > *HernÃ¡n Wilkinson > Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching > Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207 > email: hernan.wilkinson(a)10Pines.com > site: http://www.10Pines.com <http://www.10pines.com/>* > Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina > -- Janko MivÅ¡ek Aida/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si

Feb. 11, 2012