
Smalltalk to get a second crack at the whip - horrido
https://medium.com/@richardeng/smalltalk-to-get-a-second-crack-at-the-whip-ecaeb8a94533
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louiscyphre
Smalltalk is the second most loved programming language, according to the 2017
StackOverflow survey. (Rust is most loved.) If any language deserves a second
chance, it's Smalltalk.

Thus, there's no reason why Smalltalk can't be widely adopted, whether it's in
the enterprise or elsewhere (teaching, hobbyist, research, machine learning,
natural language processing, IoT, virtual reality, etc.).

Teaching: [https://medium.com/p/an-open-letter-to-all-universities-
ad98...](https://medium.com/p/an-open-letter-to-all-universities-ad98af4a96b3)

Machine learning:
[https://biosmalltalk.github.io/web/](https://biosmalltalk.github.io/web/)

IoT: [https://medium.com/concerning-pharo/pharo-
pi-9eef257b6a21](https://medium.com/concerning-pharo/pharo-pi-9eef257b6a21)

Virtual reality: [http://www.opencobalt.net](http://www.opencobalt.net) and
[http://www.3dicc.com](http://www.3dicc.com)

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mstade
It's too bad this targeted a language that's actually useful, as opposed to
something like brainfuck. For me the joke fell flat because of it. I would've
loved to see this kind of investment – alas, such are the follies of this day.

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pebblexe
Hopefully they introduce namespaces (like matriona) and the type system of
strongtalk with gradual typing.

edit: just realized this was an april fools :(

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agumonkey
I've a lot of Pharo (ex Squeak) since a few years. Even done a MOOC which was
very interesting. I could have believed this blog.

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aaroninsf
A tear for the old skool.

Never again shall the sun of youth shine again

nor my code wander tended glades with wonder plain

and vigor unbound, exposed, unashamed, all in one

world

~~~
ljw1001
that's just what I was thinking

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derrickdirge
So is Smalltalk a joke language now?

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throwaway7645
No the author Richard Eng has been doing a ton of short marketing blog posts
trying to get more attention for the language and appears to have an April
Fool's sense of humor. He's also been talking about Go a lot which is very
different than Smalltalk in all but the simplicity aspect.

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coldtea
Month aside, it would be a great thing to actually happen...

Instead of e.g. Google investing tens of millions on BS like Dart.

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metricodus
What's so bad about Dart, if you disregard the "Google is trying to subvert
the web" angst from people who have invested heavily in the javascript world?
I quite like the optional typing in the language, for instance.

I just wish there was more serverside-development happening in Dart - it seems
95% client-side focused at the moment (dart2js and flutter).

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coldtea
> _What 's so bad about Dart, if you disregard the "Google is trying to
> subvert the web" angst? I quite like the optional typing in the language,
> for instance._

A new language that doesn't solve anything better than Smalltalk did.

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metricodus
It does provide the feature of optional typing, as I just said. I spent my
formative years developing in a language with optional typing and really grew
to like it. I think it's a great concept that has missed the mainstream
somehow.

Besides from that the syntax is completely different, being inherited from C.

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throwaway7645
Is optional typing the same thing as gradual typing in Perl6 as in you can
specify types, but don't have to?

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metricodus
I don't know much about Perl, but this describes Dart's approach to optional
typing:

[https://www.dartlang.org/articles/language/optional-
types](https://www.dartlang.org/articles/language/optional-types)

(But meh, it's not really innovative/new as this page says, just not popular.)

Basically, it's a language that allows you to choose the level of type
checking. You can be super strict all the time, or only when it matters. Or
not at all.

Like all other modern languages it naturally has the basic collection data
types built in so that you don't have to reinvent them.

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erikj
I wish this wasn't a joke.

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throwaway7645
Lol, I assumed a joke immediately due to the figure and subject, but forgot
the date for a second :)

Edit: I don't think Smalltalk is a joke, just that HP wouldn't think this a
worthy investment.

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pacaro
I think "Sun Microsystems marketing muscle" was what made me raise an eyebrow

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throwaway7645
They did spend a fortune marketing Java when Smalltalk was poised to be THE
new enterprise language.

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pacaro
I remember all too well. Sun had mindshare at the time too, in a way that the
far bigger IBM didn't. I'm just glad none of the 4GLs won

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throwaway7645
I'll cede my past reading of internet blog articles describing a time I was
pooping in diapers to your actual real-world experience :)

2 questions..why did the smaller Sun have more mindshare and what were the
4GLs? I might not be familiar with the term.

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pacaro
The Fourth Generation Languages where supposed to take over from the Third
Generation Languages (C, C++, Pascal, Fortran, COBOL etc.) for higher level
work (like business computing)

Many have been successful within niches, but Java was a brand new 3GL at a
time when a lot of industry focus was on 4GLs.

I think sun had mindshare because they understood the nascent internet much
better. From my perspective it was the first time I had seen a marketing
effort of that scale behind a programming language.

Sun also supported SunSITE which was pretty much the best place to find FOSS
at the time

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-
generation_programming_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-
generation_programming_language)

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throwaway7645
Interesting thanks!

