Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
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Re: Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
#2> #($a #a 'a' 1 1.0)
A syntax so easy, you can teach your grandma in 15 minutes.
Re: Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
#3> #($a #a 'a' 1 1.0) A syntax so easy, you can teach your grandma in 15 minutes.
Indeed, you can. The first thing to learn here is that the hash (#) signifies a literal symbol. So, #a is a symbol, whereas 'a' is a string (of length 1 and containing the character $a).
The second thing to learn is that the dollar sign ($) signifies a character value, so $b is the value of the character "b" and $c is the value of the character "c".
#() signifies a literal array created at compile time.
Thus, #($a #a 'a' 1 1.0) is an array that contains the character $a, the symbol #a, the string 'a', the integer 1, and the floating value 1.0). Easy peasy.
Re: Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
#4I think of the big problems with Smalltalk is how bad the marketing is. There are few posts which get brought up over and over, and they claim the things that are clearly false ("It can be learned in its entirety within 15 minutes!") or misleading (the one productivity study which is by now decades old.. the claim that it has "simple syntax").
I'd like to encourage Smalltalk advocates to write more "from the trenches" posts. A Haskell is a great comparison: it looks like every few weeks there is a post on using Haskell in production, like [0].. Those posts work much than abstract claims of "tremendous benefits" and "magical language".
Re: Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
#5> #($a #a 'a' 1 1.0) A syntax so easy, you can teach your grandma in 15 minutes.
Indeed, you can. The first thing to learn here is that the hash (#) signifies a literal symbol. So, #a is a symbol, whereas 'a' is a string (of length 1 and containing the character $a). The second thing to learn is that the dollar sign ($) signifies a character value, so $b is the value of the character "b" and $c is the value of the character "c". #() signifies a literal array created at compile time. Thus, #($a #a…
Separate types for literals, characters and strings? That's already more complex than Python, not to mention TCL.
Re: Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
#6I think of the big problems with Smalltalk is how bad the marketing is. There are few posts which get brought up over and over, and they claim the things that are clearly false ("It can be learned in its entirety within 15 minutes!") or misleading (the one productivity study which is by now decades old.. the claim that it has "simple syntax"). I'd like to encourage Smalltalk advocates to write more "from the trenches…
The following tutorial can be finished within 15 minutes: https://amber-lang.net/learn.html. Thereafter, you will know the entire syntax of Smalltalk-80.
Is there a Python tutorial where you can learn all of Python's syntax within 15 minutes?
Re: Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
#7When you add the Gemstone/S transparent object database to the mix is is truly astonishing.
Re: Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
#8I think of the big problems with Smalltalk is how bad the marketing is. There are few posts which get brought up over and over, and they claim the things that are clearly false ("It can be learned in its entirety within 15 minutes!") or misleading (the one productivity study which is by now decades old.. the claim that it has "simple syntax"). I'd like to encourage Smalltalk advocates to write more "from the trenches…
Sorry, all these articles are from a single person with the messianic syndrome who named himself "Mr Smalltalk". He absolutely rejects any complaints about his activities (he repeatedly told us that we do not understand marketing) and he will never be able to write something more solid because he actually is not a Smalltalk programmer and does not know it well. He is making a really bad service.
Re: Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
#9I think of the big problems with Smalltalk is how bad the marketing is. There are few posts which get brought up over and over, and they claim the things that are clearly false ("It can be learned in its entirety within 15 minutes!") or misleading (the one productivity study which is by now decades old.. the claim that it has "simple syntax"). I'd like to encourage Smalltalk advocates to write more "from the trenches…
> the one productivity study which is by now decades old
This study was published within the last decade (2017): https://www.ifpug.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IYSM.-Thirt....
It contains data for languages like Ceylon (2011), Dart (2011), Elixir (2011), F# (2005), Go (2009), Haxe (2005), and Julia (2012). So, no, not decades old.
Moreover, Haskell is an old language that has only recently come into the limelight. It's considered new-ish.
The study does contain data for languages going all the way back to the 1960s. This is a Good Thing. It means we have a statistically huge sample size which only further supports its validity.
In fact, this is the largest study of its kind. Why would anybody want a small sample size that only covers a few languages from the last 20 years???
Re: Smalltalk: An Entrepreneur's Secret Weapon
#10I think of the big problems with Smalltalk is how bad the marketing is. There are few posts which get brought up over and over, and they claim the things that are clearly false ("It can be learned in its entirety within 15 minutes!") or misleading (the one productivity study which is by now decades old.. the claim that it has "simple syntax"). I'd like to encourage Smalltalk advocates to write more "from the trenches…
Sorry, all these articles are from a single person with the messianic syndrome who named himself "Mr Smalltalk". He absolutely rejects any complaints about his activities (he repeatedly told us that we do not understand marketing) and he will never be able to write something more solid because he actually is not a Smalltalk programmer and does not know it well. He is making a really bad service.
If I'm not mistaken, he created the following blog: https://smalltalk.tech.blog/.
It contains "solid" articles from Leandro Caniglia and Lorenzo Schiavina.
It also contains an article about his recent programming competition (currently under way): https://smalltalk.tech.blog/2020/02/08/the-results-are-in/.
This is one heck of a competition, and it's a great promotion for Pharo!