Re: ::scr Touchy Feely?

[Piers Cawley <pdcawley-scr@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Simon Kinahan" <simon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

>> Indeed. So I'm still not sure why they bothered inventing Java in the
>> first place. Just get a decent Smalltalk VM ported to oodles of
>> platforms. (Yes, I know...)
>
> Java has two advantages over Smalltalk (and many more disadvantages).
> Unfortunately, they turned out to be crucial.
>
> 1. Its syntax is like sanitised C++. That made it relatively easy for most
> programmers to learn, even though the semantics are totally different.
> Remember, most programmers know only one or two languages, most of which
> will have a BCPL or Algol descended syntax, and never really understand the
> semantics of any language. Smalltalk's syntax is very nice once you get used
> to it - a good compromise between uniformity and readability - but it does
> need to be got used to.

Yes, the more I play around with Smalltalk, the more I like the
syntax; it gets out of the way. But I still get weirded out by the
'arithmetic implemented as message passing' approach which means that
1 + 3 * 3 doesn't really do what you expected.

>From my point of view, the Java syntax (and C++'s syntax before it) is
a *horrible* syntax to do OO in. Method definitions that appear to
have more declaration code that code that actually *does* anything
definitely leave me code, and if your code is well factored that's
almost certainly what you'll have in a lot of cases. Same applies to
Perl actually, I'm *really* looking forward to being able to write
methods using Perl 6 syntax...

> 2. Smalltalk image files are rediculously huge, and the language
> does not really support separate compilation. When Java appeared,
> you could fill the typical PC hard disk with 20 Smalltalk
> programs. That made it unusable for most casual users.

Oh yes, image files are definitely weird. If you're just running a
single app though you can usually strip the image file right down to
something that'll be reasonably small and run headless. But you
probably already knew that.

-- 
Piers

   "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a language in
    possession of a rich syntax must be in need of a rewrite."
         -- Jane Austen?