On 03/05/2016 12:57 PM, Ben Coman wrote:
On Sun, Mar 6, 2016 at 2:10 AM, Sven Van Caekenberghe <s...@stfx.eu> wrote:
On 05 Mar 2016, at 18:22, Eliot Miranda <eliot.mira...@gmail.com> wrote:
Stef,
On Mar 5, 2016, at 12:10 AM, stepharo <steph...@free.fr> wrote:
You probably leave in a protected environment but I do not live in the same.
Did you check numPy recently or R? momemtum?
Do you think that people do not know how to count?
In 1980 my students were not even born, so how can it be better than
python, java, c#, lua, ...
Do you think that it makes me happy to see my old friends leaving our language
and do node.js.
Seriously.
Why do you blame me? Frankly tell to leave Pharo and I will leave. I can tell
you.
I think that I need a break in my life in this moment so it would be a good
opportunity.
Because if each time I do something to improve the wealth and visibility of our
system
I get such kind of feedback then may be this is the time to do something.
Afterall I may be wrong.
Seriously if you think that I'm not doing a good job and you want to stay with
old friends
just let me know. but if I stay then do not tell me that I'm an asshole that
does not want to
promote smalltalk.
I do not blame you. I am offended by Pharo disavowing the Smalltalk name. I
am offended when people state Pharo is not Smalltalk. I want to refute false
assumptions about the name Smalltalk, such as the equating it with cobol.
Instead of taking it personally why don't you address my points about older
programming languages whose names (AFAICT) are not perceived negatively?
I support this community and am excited to participate in it. I admire and
respect your efforts, Stéphane, in developing, organizing and supporting this
community. But that does not mean I will keep quiet about something I
profoundly disagree with and think is wrong. And that thing is to deny Pharo
is Smalltalk.
And I do this not because I am a zealot, but because words meaning are
important, because to understand each other we should call a spade a spade, and
because I am grateful for and delighted by this thing called Smalltalk, and I
will not support taking credit away from it. Ruby is inspired by Smalltalk.
Pharo is the real thing.
Pharo was started because a certain situation existed in the Squeak community
that blocked progress for a group of people that had another vision. Pharo was
started and exists to fulfil that grand vision, a vision that is clearly rooted
in Smalltalk history, but goes beyond that.
If you want to focus on words, your sentence 'Pharo is Smalltalk' is not so
innocent or politically free, as you know very well, even if it looks like
factually correct (it is BTW).
We say it differently because of what I just wrote, because we want to be free
of backwards compatibility (if necessary), because we want to have a larger
future than maintaining something old (even though we absolutely respect and
acknowledge it). Yes, it is a bit of a play of words, but not without reason.
Here is one writeup that tries to describe the same idea:
http://www.tudorgirba.com/blog/pharo-is-pharo
But the best documents are the Pharo vision documents.
The counter argument is that there was Smalltalk-71, -72, -76, -78,
-80. Some of these were distinctly different from the last. So
Smalltalk was an *evolving* system. Why can't it be so again!? and
be Smalltalk-Renew, Smalltalk-Next, Smalltalk-Evolved, Smalltalk-16,
Smalltalk-P16 or Smalltalk-P5 "Pharo 5".
As long as the emphasis is on Pharo being an *evolution* of Smalltalk
(which is not in doubt), I think we cover all bases - stimulating the
interest of newcomers and/or detractors of old, as well as Smalltalk
stalwarts without being constrained by the past. As much as we might
want to promote Pharo being separate from Smalltalk (which I believe
was a reasonable strategy to establish identity at the time of the
fork from Squeak), Smalltalk is always going to be there for anyone
who scratches beneath the surface and they end up thinking "Oh its
*just* Smalltalk" anyway. So this remains the "elephant in the room",
*subtly* undermining of our marketing. Its the sort of weakness that
can be better to hit head on as "Smalltalk-Evolved" (since "Evolved"
is a term with positive connotations in the gaming / sci-fi
communities.)
cheers -ben
I have had this argument also from the pro-Smalltalk side of things.
What persuaded me to be more liberal and permissive in the argument
pro-Pharo is simply this. All of the Smalltalks above were done be the
creators of Smalltalk. They had ownership and rights to the name
Smalltalk and the directions it had the freedom to pursue. The creators
of Pharo do not have such ownership to the Smalltalk history, heritage
or name. Do they have the rights to say that the direction they take
Pharo is the direction of Smalltalk? What if Squeak diverges in a
different direction? Who is to say which is the standard bearer for the
name of Smalltalk.
Caution says no. Pharo doesn't have that right. The creators of
Smalltalk did not hand off the stewardship of Smalltalk to Pharo. I am
happy to be proven that Pharo has legitimate rights to carry on the name
of Smalltalk in the directions it goes, regardless of what they may be.
Just one opinion of someone who is both pro-Smalltalk and pro-Pharo. And
strongly understands words have meaning.
Shalom.
Jimmie
