On 20.06.2009, at 10:52, Cameron Sanders wrote:
> They could probably all learn from the other flavors. In fact, the
> cross-smalltalk portability is a negative for smalltalk.
>
> I believe I tried smalltalk/X... that's the natively-compiled one,
> right? So it feels like C++ if you change a root class -- or am I
> confusing it with another? I'm on a new platform and can't check what
> all I installed last year, at the moment.
>
> I like the idea of a compiled version!! And there would be a place for
> it in my world, *if* I could take code from Pharo and load it into
> say, Smalltalk/X, and have it work without a month-long debugging
> session.
One huge problem with compatibility is always that it reduces any
possibility
in evolving/improving the system. If the goal is to be compatible to
e.g.
all of Smalltalk X, Visualworks, Squeak, Gemstone.... than, in the
end, this means we can not
do anything anymore, and, most importantly: we can not do any *fun*
things anymore.
Beeing compatible means reducing what you do to the subset of all the
dialects, and than
stop doing anything.
If I you should choose between a) "inventing the future" and b) "be
compatible to VisualWorks",
what would you take?
And I personally have already choosen for the "inventing the future"
route, I guess. It makes
no sense to be in Research (and beeing payed those wonderful tiny
salaries) and than do boring stuff.
That makes no sense.
I personally think that the possibility and duty of working on
interesting things is part of the
overall compensation package of people in Research.
Marcus
--
Marcus Denker - http://marcusdenker.de
PLEIAD Lab - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile
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