>>> Put too much emphasis on tools and you'll have a language that will >>> be barely usable *without* them. >> This is a bold statement, and I want to understand more of it. >> How can you be sure? Do you consider Ruby or Python barely usable >> without tools? > > Heh. It's a bold statement, I agree. No, I do not consider Python to > be useless without tools.
Ok, so this gives me some confidence that you didn't mean the proposed Smalltalk extension to be useless without tools. Ironically, I consider current Smalltalks to be barely usable without tools (browser), given the problems with the bang syntax. AFAIU, you consider the bang syntax amendable instead; this may be the main disagreement, right? > Which is why I don't really > need anything else than a text editor and Python. Hell, I don't even > need the text editor. I can tell you it's the same with Smalltalk -- both current and proposed syntax. But the productivity will improve a lot, I think. Besides, it is just syntactic sugar, you can steer away from it or you can try it. >>> The language that it's being turned into is not that language. >> This is also a bold statement. Please expand on it, I'm genuinely >> interested (they even deserved a subject change!). > > It's entirely my own opinion and it's based on one simple fact: I > wouldn't use it. I find that the changes you're proposing address some > of the things that I like most about Smalltalk (extreme simplicity, one > paradigm) Here is where I don't understand your point. The syntax doesn't add paradigms. It only touches the most basic constructs of Smalltalk, which are the ones that are used to structure a program -- classes, methods, namespaces. These changes surely don't add as much complexity as there is in Python's syntax (iterators, for example: if these enter the GNU Smalltalk class library, it will not grow new keywords like "yield"; likewise for splicing). In fact, the class/class-instance variable example shows how the new syntax emphasizes the duality between instance variables/methods and class-instance variables/class methods, while the current bang syntax only expresses this for the methods, and suggests a wrong correspondence between instance and class variables. If a syntax helps improving one's language usage, I find that a good point in favor of it. As far as scripting, your suggestions will not be implemented immediately due to lack of time, but they are a prerequisite for the next release. Please, tell me which points you disagree on. Paolo _______________________________________________ help-smalltalk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-smalltalk
