Richard Eng

Google is sending out a rather confusing message: use Dart; use AngularDart; use JavaScript (AngularJS); use AtScript (AngularJS 2.0). How long before we see: use Golang? (There's already a Go2JS compiler.) Also, if Chrome is the only browser to incorporate the Dart VM, the "works best in Chrome" attitude will annoy non-Chrome users, who will feel they're treated as second-class citizens. You hope other browser vendors will follow the lead? Dream on. Politically, it's not going to happen. Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla will NEVER accept Dart. I think Dart is an okay language. I might even use it someday. But I can think of alternative languages that are a lot more pleasant to use, eg: https://medium.com/@richardeng/js-christ-im-using-js-1d1d0864d33e

As someone who doesn't follow his blog, my summary is: "lots of people have 'weird' interests. I think Smalltalk is the best programming language. It's so good it can help save the world." Sure, there might be explanations elsewhere, just like there are evangelists for Lisp ... or Perl 6. And with similar arguments. Take http://flownet.com/gat/jpl-lisp.html from 2002 as an example: > I did try to introduce Lisp to Google. Having had some experience selling Lisp at JPL I got all my ducks in a row, had a cool demo going, showed it to all the other members of the ads team, and had them all convinced that this was a good idea. The only thing left was to get approval from the VP of engineering. The conversation went something like this: Me: I'd like to talk to you about something... Him: Let me guess - you want to use Smalltalk. Me: Er, no... Him: Lisp? Me: Right. Him: No way. That was 17 years ago! Any essay which doesn't take into account the "Lisp-weenie" stereotype (see http://wiki.c2.com/?SmugLispWeenie ) is preaching to the choir. I ended up putting this essay into the pile of other advocacy-for-language-X pieces I've read, with no interest in reading other blog postings. But I did anyway. https://medium.com/@richardeng/how-does-python-make-thinking-in-code-e… ("Pythonistas will also tell you that Python’s syntax reads like English"). 1) It's a strawman argument, as I'm a Pythonista and I don't say that, and 2) AppleScript is…

Check out this lightweight intro, which touches on REST API communication: https://medium.com/smalltalk-talk/a-gentle-introduction-to-amber-8c532… It also shows how to integrate with external JavaScript libraries. The example they use is D3. Here's part 2 of their article: https://medium.com/@richardeng/you-are-now-an-ambersmith-c257a73f4ef9 There are probably other tutorial that are more extensive.

Smalltalk's syntax[0], presumably. [0]: https://medium.com/@richardeng/syntax-on-a-post-card-cb6d85fabf88

ah sorry I pasted the wrong link, here it is: https://medium.com/@richardeng/how-to-measure-programming-language-com…

Oh, and it appears that Smalltalk has at least re-entered the top 50 after a 5 year absence: https://medium.com/@richardeng/smalltalk-and-tiobe-5409afb19ef3

Is there any progress on porting to mobile system.[This](https://medium.com/@richardeng/mobile-smalltalk-c6f0cc712909)mobile SmallTalk seems to be the furthest endeavor.

Still relevant today? In 1988, I was briefed by Ibm how they would use Smalltalk with about 10 programmer develop something to ... do not believe them for 1s. What is the business model is then what Microsoft teach the world. It is not technology but the business (the share to the inventor and investor) or later in 1990s (we learn from open sources) the governance and partipation model that rule. Also, it is dynamic and environment base then, how to work in a large team is not that resolve for new firm to use it. Hence once again a 2018 to 1998 me, is this still relevant. I read this btw during my 15min search about this and give up. Like 1988. https://medium.com/@richardeng/mobile-smalltalk-c6f0cc712909

No, Mr. Smalltalk is Richard Kenneth Eng, a Canadian software-engineer: https://medium.com/@richardeng

Yes, he is probably talking about Smalltalk-style OO: https://medium.com/@richardeng/domo-arigato-mr-smalltalk-aa84e245beb9 He's also the subject of this article: https://thenewstack.io/can-man-spark-renaissance-smalltalk-programming… which made the front page of HN a while back (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13642947)

I think you're barking up the wrong class hierarchy, trying to reformulate objects, messages and parameters as abstract data types. Alan Kay has been quite clear about his opinion that “Abstract Data Types” is not OOP. http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~ram/pub/pub_jf47ht81Ht/doc_kay_oop_en >One of the things I should have mentioned is that there were two main paths that were catalysed by Simula. The early one (just by accident) was the bio/net non-data-procedure route that I took. The other one, which came a little later as an object of study was abstract data types, and this got much more play. >If we look at the whole history, we see that the proto-OOP stuff started with ADT, had a little fork towards what I called "objects" -- that led to Smalltalk, etc.,-- but after the little fork, the CS establishment pretty much did ADT and wanted to stick with the data-procedure paradigm. [...] >(I'm not against types, but I don't know of any type systems that aren't a complete pain, so I still like dynamic typing.) >OOP to me means only messaging, local retention and protection and hiding of state-process, and extreme late-binding of all things. It can be done in Smalltalk and in LISP. There are possibly other systems in which this is possible, but I'm not aware of them. https://computinged.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/alan-kay-on-motis-objects… >If you are “setting” values from the outside of an object, you are doing “simulated data structure programming” rather…