On 7 Feb 2022, at 09:10, contactme@kathe.in wrote:
On Monday, February 07, 2022 08:57 CET, Marcus Denker <marcus.denker@inria.fr> wrote:
On 7 Feb 2022, at 08:41, contactme@kathe.in wrote:
Hello Marcus,
Thanks for responding with thorough details, but I'm not such a good OO programmer, so what I need to know is; Will we be able to continue developing with Pharo using the same old Smalltalk-like syntax? Or, will there be major changes some time in the future? Like how (I think) "_" from Squeak was replaced with ":=" in Pharo!
:= is I think even ANSI Standard, or not?
There are no plans for syntactical changesâ¦
But of course: The *goal* of Pharo is not to be Smalltalk80.
I have to admit I kind of misunderstood Squeak back thenâ¦
I really thought the idea if was to take ST80 as a startingoint âto invent the futureâ⦠I still like that idea, I have to say⦠to me what fascinates me is how to take something that is as of a great idea as ST80 and improve it⦠for example just consider the resources (in terms of memory or processing power or networking) we have today vs. 1978.
The âletâs through it all away and start from scratchâ approach is not great, either⦠as you need something to buld upon. And: as soon as you finish that âbetterâ system, you would have the same problem: you would be stuck with a âfinishedâ system, while the world continues to evolve.
It is a real interesting research question: How an you build Systems that can evolve over a long time ?
Systems which evolve over time need to have a very tiny core which is supremely malleable. For one, I would start with a "Forth" and add an object-system to it using the "Metaobject Protocol" along with a Common Lisp like "Condition System".
Forth in the context of the core of an object system is interesting⦠someone did in 1979 a Smalltalk and Forth inspired system called âRosetta Smalltalk" https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1113572.1113555 <https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1113572.1113555> But: the nice thing of evolving a system is that you *always* can show a real, working result. You can have users, including yourself⦠you can find ways of financing your work that is not just promising something for the future. (which you can only do so often before people get sceptical). I think being part of the early Squeak community kind of burned for me the âletâs not improve that (relatively) simple thing A, instead wait for <genius X> to finish <amazing Project Z>. Imagine instead you would build a feedback-loop *inside* of your system... Marcus