On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 2:57 PM, Sean P. DeNigris <[email protected]>wrote:
> > This is fun! Thanks for the discussion... > > > csrabak wrote: > > > > Sean, once you really get to metal subtleties and other nuances on the > > language and syntax appear to bug your team. Have you ever heard of > > John McSweeney's "Smalltalk ‘Traps’" piece¹? > > > [ sean isOnChair ] whileTrue: [ sean laugh ]. > 7 pages! (actually 6.5 - with embedded images) That actually proves my > point vs. entire textbooks ;-) Not to mention that: > Just to ilustrate =) http://www.amazon.com/Java-Pitfalls-Time-Saving-Solutions-Workarounds/dp/0471361747 http://www.amazon.com/Java-TM-Puzzlers-Pitfalls-Corner/dp/032133678X/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291752617&sr=1-4 Cheers, Francisco > * the first page and a half's examples are trivial and not exactly "traps" > (the fact that self is implicitly returned) > * the "10 + (10 negated) negated" "trap" executes intuitively and correctly > in Squeak > * the example of changing a loop while iterating with do: seems like C++ > code translated literally into Smalltalk > * the last 1.5 pages are totally contrived (and use global variables which > are discouraged anyway; I haven't had to use one yet) - yes, if you *want* > to screw up the system, you can: > #right > basicAt: 1 put: 119; > basicAt: 2 put: 114; > basicAt: 3 put: 111; > basicAt: 4 put: 110; > basicAt: 5 put: 103. > #right > An equivalent argument is: if you hit your laptop repeatedly with a bat, it > will not work regardless of what programming language you were using, so > you > might as well pick any > > > csrabak wrote: > > > > Well, comparing C, even C++ which normally hasn't automatic garbage > > collection, is somewhat stretching the argument... > > > Well, that's just the point, isn't it? We're talking about language > popularity and those are #2 and #3 on the TIOBE index. > > > csrabak wrote: > > > > even with those > > "idiosyncrasies" as soon the size of the application grows up, these > > perks of Smalltalk quickly become less noticeable > > > I've been using Smalltalk for less than a year, but I'm already more > productive by far than in C, C++, or even Ruby, and haven't hit that limit > writing software for small businesses. If there is a size at which the > benefit lessens, isn't it more likely caused by poor design/devs or any > number of factors (don't most large projects fail)? It can't be the same > or > worse to use a poor library in a dynamic live environment. I recently > wrote > a simple Ruby bridge and found it liberating to deal with the library in > the > Smalltalk tools rather than in Ruby's code/run cycle. > > > csrabak wrote: > > > > Smalltalk... programmers attention to avoid the attribution of wrong > > objects to instance variables as there is no type checking... > > > I have never encountered this and I've often heard it said by dynamic > language experts to be mostly static language paranoia. What is the > evidence that this becomes a severe problem in real-life dynamic systems? > > Sean > -- > View this message in context: > http://forum.world.st/Popularity-or-not-of-smalltalk-tp3073990p3076885.html > Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > >
