SmallTalk / Lisp [was Re: Whitespace as syntax ...]

[Bijan Parsia]

Gordon McMillan <gmcm at hypernet.com> wrote:

> Bijan, Paul -
> 
> Come on guys, 
[snip a plausible theory]

While sounding quite reasonable, I suspect that the opposite pattern is
also found in various cases. Which serves to confirm my point that the
fact that Smalltalk didn't and probably won't (though, who knows?) "take
over the world".

I don't *want* to take over the world. As long as the Smalltalk world is
reasonably self-sustaining and continues to produce interesting stuff
which, frankly, anyone is free to swipe, then I don't see that there's a
problem.

There were some shaky times (just as Common Lisp had some shaky times)
due, in part, to a major vendor's insanities :) Not everyone "in the
community" (gah!) did things that helped and some or many became perhaps
too defensive. Things seem to be looser now and there's a lot of steam
going (more implementations than every before, and an ANSI standard).

Er.. the reason I started this is that I don't think I wrote anything
that made it make sense that I needed this (nicely put) lecture. In
fact, while stated more strongly that I would have put it, it seem quite
consonent with my general position. So I'm a little confused :)

Cheers,
Bijan Parsia.