Who has an account on this wiki and how did you get it? The wiki pages have an Edit button, but it uses an HTTP auth prompt, and cancelling it doesn't provide any details about how to register. I also don't see anything after looking around elsewhere on the wiki itself, nor does Googling turn anything up.
Slang: The subset of Smalltalk that can translate to C or other languages (2019)
11–20 of 25 posts
Re: Slang: The subset of Smalltalk that can translate to C or other languages (2019)
#12Who has an account on this wiki and how did you get it? The wiki pages have an Edit button, but it uses an HTTP auth prompt, and cancelling it doesn't provide any details about how to register. I also don't see anything after looking around elsewhere on the wiki itself, nor does Googling turn anything up.
It is an open secret within the Squeak community. Participate in the community for a while and I'm sure someone will be happy to give it to you.
Re: Slang: The subset of Smalltalk that can translate to C or other languages (2019)
#13I'm very much a beginner with Smalltalk but have used C since K&R. I'm having difficulty with the statement that Slang is a dialect of Smalltalk which "does not have blocks (except for a few control structures), message sending or even objects." How can you have even a subset of Smalltalk without these? Even something as basic as an "if" statement uses all three. I see the examples, but they don't shed much light. Or is the grammar wrong, so the sentence is intended to say that the C output does not have objects etc.?
Re: Slang: The subset of Smalltalk that can translate to C or other languages (2019)
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can see why this is frustrating, especially to someone with no C exposure. But bear in mind that the C underpinnings are part of the reason why these languages are popular in the first place -- like Perl used to be before Python. In a very real sense, the entire concept of an interpreted language in the modern sense is such an ugly kludge (much cleaner to "go all in" on the language, LISP machines being the notable…
I cannot make heads or tails of what this person is trying to say
There's a fair amount to unpack here.
> I can see why this is frustrating, especially to someone with no C exposure. But bear in mind that the C underpinnings are part of the reason why these languages are popular in the first place -- like Perl used to be before Python.
I the idea GP is proposing here is that because C is so cumbersome, that is why scripting languages became prominent in the first place. I don't think this many would argue with this.
> In a very real sense, the entire concept of an interpreted language in the modern sense is such an ugly kludge
Here GP is implying that if C were nicer/better, or if some other low level language would have risen to prominence, the scripting langauges would not have been "necessary" or desirable in the same way.
> (much cleaner to "go all in" on the language, LISP machines being the notable predecessor) -- but do be aware of the tradeoff.
Here I assume GP is referring to the work in the 80s on Lisp machines where the idea was to build machines from the ground up more suited to a different paradigm. And thus obviating the need for a cumbersome language such as C.
I personally wonder if GP is familiar the "worse is better" essay?
Re: Slang: The subset of Smalltalk that can translate to C or other languages (2019)
#15I'm very much a beginner with Smalltalk but have used C since K&R. I'm having difficulty with the statement that Slang is a dialect of Smalltalk which "does not have blocks (except for a few control structures), message sending or even objects." How can you have even a subset of Smalltalk without these? Even something as basic as an "if" statement uses all three. I see the examples, but they don't shed much light. Or…
I'm not sure about objects, but at least for control structures like "if" the answer is in your quote:
> (except for a few control structures)
Blocks are available specifically for those limited control structures, like "if".
Re: Slang: The subset of Smalltalk that can translate to C or other languages (2019)
#16I'm very much a beginner with Smalltalk but have used C since K&R. I'm having difficulty with the statement that Slang is a dialect of Smalltalk which "does not have blocks (except for a few control structures), message sending or even objects." How can you have even a subset of Smalltalk without these? Even something as basic as an "if" statement uses all three. I see the examples, but they don't shed much light. Or…
I think they’re saying ifTrue: is an intrinsic in their transpiler, so the method call is skipped and replaced with a C statement. They could have chosen instead to generate C code that actually invokes a method on a receiver (using whatever their calling convention is for methods), which would be slower but monkey-patching would work as usual.
Re: Slang: The subset of Smalltalk that can translate to C or other languages (2019)
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
I cannot make heads or tails of what this person is trying to say
There's a fair amount to unpack here. > I can see why this is frustrating, especially to someone with no C exposure. But bear in mind that the C underpinnings are part of the reason why these languages are popular in the first place -- like Perl used to be before Python. I the idea GP is proposing here is that because C is so cumbersome, that is why scripting languages became prominent in the first place. I don't thi…
Wow, I should work on my prose, that comment I wrote was really bad :-(
> I personally wonder if GP is familiar the "worse is better" essay?
I am, it was more or less the idea I was trying to get to. The comment I replied to was along the lines of "I'd like a uniform environment where everything is lisp/smalltalk/pharo/etc". My intention was to point out how that idea isn't as free from compromises as it might seem, which explains the dominant model of high-level scripting languages invoking components written mostly in C/C++. Which is a total eyesore, but also extremely practical.
Re: Slang: The subset of Smalltalk that can translate to C or other languages (2019)
#18Who has an account on this wiki and how did you get it? The wiki pages have an Edit button, but it uses an HTTP auth prompt, and cancelling it doesn't provide any details about how to register. I also don't see anything after looking around elsewhere on the wiki itself, nor does Googling turn anything up.
It is an open secret within the Squeak community. Participate in the community for a while and I'm sure someone will be happy to give it to you.
> Participate in the community for a while
Well, you see, that's what I'm trying to do here...
Re: Slang: The subset of Smalltalk that can translate to C or other languages (2019)
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is an open secret within the Squeak community. Participate in the community for a while and I'm sure someone will be happy to give it to you.
> Participate in the community for a while Well, you see, that's what I'm trying to do here...
Well, this isn't the right place to do it. At least introduce yourself on the squeak-dev or beginners email lists and ask for the ability to edit the swiki there. It would also help to mention your immediate plans.
The swiki is extremely old-school and simplistic and has suffered defacement issues in the past. Also, unfortunately, the overall Smalltalk community (at least the open source part) is both too small and at this time terribly fractured. Resources like the swiki have had little real attention for many many years.
Re: Slang: The subset of Smalltalk that can translate to C or other languages (2019)
#20At first I thought 'what does an ncurses alternative have to do with Smalltalk' but it quickly dawned on me that this is another tool using the name 'Slang'. OK, the ncurses alternative is officially spelled 'S-Lang' [1] but in the vernacular it usually gets shorted to 'slang'. It is used by e.g. Midnight Commander:
$ ldd /usr/bin/mc
...
libslang.so.2 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libslang.so.2
...
[1] https://github.com/hankem/S-Lang