Re: [Help-smalltalk] [vwnc] Are Objects really hard?

[Shyam Sundaresan (Personal)]

Well, programming in any language is hard, because beside, languages and
technologies apart,  being an IT man, you have to be the patient ,
 unthanked  "baby sitter  equivalent"  presiding over  complex industrial
and business processes encompassing roles  at random from a worker to CEO,
passing through that of the budget conscious and technology phobic CFO.

If we talk about just ONE aspect (*technological*) of it, then, as an
ex-CIO for over 20 years, I can vouch that Smalltalk delivers some
historical firsts not YET achieved by others in the 30 years of catch up
(and copying ) game. In particular, I liked this passed on to me by Giorgio
Ferraris.

http://openskills.blogspot.com/2011/07/who-looks-at-smalltalk.html

Smalltalk  failed ? mmm..Depends. That is like saying classical music has
failed. Mozart and Bach are still (like many able Smalltalk veterans
around), live and kicking.

Objects are hard? mmmm...Depends. ALL modern languages are ostensibly
object oriented. But only "Small Talkers", it appears are doing programming
with a certain religious fervor; This is the happy problem with Smalltalk:
The  veteran smalltalkers are so exacting in their standards that mediocre
"others" (the bulk of the average talent) get intimidated and feel "left
out". It is not problem of smalltalk, but good Smalltalkers do make that
pedantic impression.

Ergo.. Objects (it appears erroneously), are hard only in smalltalk!



Shyam.

 Shyam Sundaresan
+39 335 74 39 444

My LinkedIn Profile <http://it.linkedin.com/in/shyamsundaresan>




2012/2/11 Janko Mivšek <address@hidden>

> Hi guys,
>
> Again one interesting topic for this weekend to discuss. David Nolen, a
> Lisp and JavaScript guy posted in his blog an article titled Illiterate
> Programming [1] where he said:
>
> "...Yet I think Smalltalk still fundamentally failed (remember this is a
> programming language originally designed to scale from children to
> adults) because *Objects are really hard* and no-one really understands
> to this day how to do them right...."
>
> He links to Alan Kay post [2] back in 1998 where he talks about problems
> with inheritance:
>
> "Here are a few problems in the naive inheritance systems we use today:
> confusions of Taxonomy and Parentage, of Specialization and Refinement,
> of Parts and Wholes, of Semantics and Pragmatics..."
>
> Let we concentrate on broader "Objects are really hard and no-one really
> understands to this day how to do them right" claim and not merely
> inheritance, please.
>
> Best regards
> Janko
>
> [1] http://dosync.posterous.com/illiterate-programming
> [2]
>
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-April/009261.html
>
> --
> Janko Mivšek
> Aida/Web
> Smalltalk Web Application Server
> http://www.aidaweb.si
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>



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