Hi, It's worth mentioning Cuis which has a radical commitment to simplification - at the expense of power I suspect but more understandable for a begginer, I find.
On Sat, 16 May 2020, 10:57 Shaping, <shap...@uurda.org> wrote: > Hi Jimmie. > > > > On 5/15/20 5:26 AM, Shaping wrote: > > I don’t understand the split. It looks silly. Maybe someone can explain > the split in terms of technical/architectural advantages, if any exist. > > > > I began using Squeak about 20 years ago. And then Pharo when it started. I > will explain as best as I can. > > The differences do have bearing on architecture and technical things but > at the beginning the basis of it all is philosophy. Differences in what you > want Squeak/Pharo to be, where you want it go. > > Squeak is from Apple Smalltalk. Smalltalk is not simply a language, but > began as an OS, an environment and a language. It ran directly on the > hardware. Then Smalltalk was ported to operating systems. But still took > with it a very OS like environment and world view. It was the world. > > This was very much Squeak. Squeak was the world. It was an amazing and > interesting environment. It could play mp3s, had MIDI capabilities. It was > a very interesting multimedia environment. Bright, colorful, creative. But > it was also a very productive programming environment to build whatever you > wanted to build. > > All of the people involved in Squeak, loved the productivity of the > Smalltalk language and the live environment. You had debates about "Pink > plane" vs "Blue plane". What was the direction of the community and the > artifact Squeak. There were two large communities with differing opinions > on direction. > > Alan Kay > The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet OOPSLA 97 Keynote (VPRI 0719) > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYT2se94eU0 > > """ > > https://pab-data.blogspot.com/2007/03/what-colour-do-you-like-your-objects.html > In Alan Kay's keynote speech at OOPSLA in 1997 he talks about a blue plane > and a pink plane. The pink plane represents ideas which are an incremental > improvement of existing ideas. The blue plane which runs orthogonal to the > pink represents revolutionary ideas that break the old way of doing things, > setting you off in a new direction. > """ > > Many people had projects and ideas which were very able to be done in > Squeak, but did not want the entire OS-like image. ... > > Maybe I want a web server. I don't need to play multimedia files. Have a > GUI. etc. > Insert your own application here. > > People wanted to build businesses around what they could do with Squeak. > > The Pink plane community wanted to begin to clean up Squeak. Break it up > into parts which could be reloaded. It wanted a much more modular > environment which allowed you to build the image you want for the purpose > you intend. > > The Blue plane community didn't see any problems with the way it was. They > liked it and still do. It fit what they wanted to do with Squeak/Smalltalk. > Frequently more research oriented and less business oriented. > > Applied basic research is most of what I do. I still want a clean, > modular environment. I don’t see how that interferes with creative verve. > It should help if only by limiting confusion and clarifying configurational > choices. > > Then in the midst of all this you have overlap in individuals who > understand both. You also had personality differences and disagreements > which developed over years. Eventually the Pink plane community forked and > created Pharo. The foundational community of Squeak (Blue plane) did not > want to make the changes the Pink plane community wanted or required. > > What are the specific changes that Squeak folks don’t want to make? > > Squeak/Pharo is a configurable environment. We can still have a quasi-OS > world if we want that. What specific aspects of the analytic and creative > experience break or degrade for Squeak users with these specific changes, > and also cannot be preserved by loading the right Smalltalk packages? > > Pharo is now 12 years or so into its journey. It is not easy losing weight > and still keep working. But that is the goal of Pharo. Keep reducing until > the entire system can be built up from a base image. And when it gets > there. We don't have a problem with from that foundation, being able to > build it back up into a Squeak-like image. > > I have numerous projects which I am doing in Pharo. One is a trading > application. I personally want as little in my image as possible which does > not have to do with my trading application. It desires to be as fast as > possible, run without failure, and as memory and cpu efficient as I can > make it to be in Pharo. I could make and run this application in Squeak. > But it would include much that I don't need and don't want. And that is the > case in Pharo currently as well. > > This points to needing more modularity, not less. We want to unload all > that we don’t want, in small or big pieces, easily and confidently, without > breaking anything. It sounds easy, but it’s not. I think this should be > one of the Consortium’s main goals. > > But Pharo has its philosophy and its direction that it is moving towards. > At some point in time my trading application will what I want it to be with > very little unused code in the image. That might not be until Pharo 10+. I > don't know. But there is a vision within Pharo for people to build such > applications. > > Image minimization is a useful feature. A Squeak user would want this > too, at least when deploying. > > I have not used Squeak in years. And nothing I write here is meant to > speak badly about Squeak. I like the Squeak community. They are full of > great people. And I do not know how accurate what I write is to the current > Squeak. My apologies for any inaccuracies or errors. > > Pharo in general is much more pro-business. It is an explicit goal of > Pharo. > https://pharo.org/about > https://gforge.inria.fr/frs/download.php/30434/PharoVision.pdf > > Both websites give you a feel for who the community is and the orientation > of their goals. > > As much as re-unification would be nice. > > Logical and utilitarian. > > I don't know that it will happen. At a minimum, not until the Squeak > community could build Squeak from a Pharo kernel image. Then it would be > possible. But I don't think likely. > > What are the specific problems? Anyone? > > This is just my generalizations in an effort to answer your question. > There are people who are in both communities. Both communities in general > attempt to cooperate when we can. Both are communities with friendly, > amazing people. And both communities have people who have been doing this > for a very long time, and that is a very good thing. > > Both are completely open source projects which will allow you to do > whatever you want within your abilities and resources. > > Basically it is simply this. Different visions for the direction of the > project and the pursuit of those directions for an extended period of time. > This email is an simplification of a lot discussions and debates over a > period of years which finally lead to a fork of Squeak. > > Hope this helps. > > > > Shaping > > > > > > > > >
