> On Dec 19, 2014, at 9:24 AM, kilon alios <kilon.al...@gmail.com> wrote: > > That also may have to do with how I work which is that I was raised with > legos so I love to assemble things together instead of abstracting them away > which I think is what Spec tries to do. So Morphic definitely fits my way of > thinking better.
My brother and I both played with Legos a lot as kids. We'd each get a big set. I would follow the instructions and build the model on the box. Then I'd play with it, and eventually get bored with it and it would go on the shelf. My brother would get halfway through following the instructions and get bored, start making his own stuff. Eventually the pieces would wind up in the big bin under his bed, along with whatever bits and pieces he hadn't taken apart yet. I always thought his stuff was terrible, didn't look as cool as what was on the box. He always thought I was boring because I'd just build the one or two things it would tell you how to make. Today, I am a professional Java web developer, with roots in Python, Haskell and Prolog. My brother, on the other hand, is a writer, potter, musician, and professional industrial hygienist but does not program at all. When you compare Smalltalk programmers to other developers, you get a lot of people who taught themselves by messing around in the image (autodidacts) and you have a lot of people who only know Smalltalk and don't really use other languages. The autodidacts I think, tend to love Morphic. But I'm not sure how many of them learned it in Pharo versus Squeak. And I think most of you probably loved Legos and were a lot more like my brother, building your own things to suit yourselves from your own imagination. Part of the genius of Pharo, in my opinion, is that it is a lot more welcoming to people like me. The downside, of course, is that you have to deal with a lot more people like me. :) Have you seen the Lego Master Builder series? They realized there were a lot of kids out there who would benefit from more documentation. Even unimaginative parents like myself can benefit from them. I got Lego MBA #1 and read the manual closely. It's obviously intended for a 10–12-year-old but I benefited from it. Spec's documentation is a lot like the Lego MBA. You're not the target audience, I am. I wish everything in the image were documented like that. I think that was sort of the intention behind Pharo by Example, which I read and got a lot out of. Spec's documentation being out there and Polymorph/Morphic not having anything like it definitely sends a message about Polymorph and Morphic though, which leads to questions like mine. — Daniel Lyons
