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Smalltalk Upsides and Downsides

April 6, 2010 8:43:12.765

Steve Wessels makes a good point about the malleability of Smalltalk:

What I would like to say is that I love how Squeak is open under the covers, and so easy to explore and extend.  All the Smalltalk tools do that.  But I m also aware of how these little annoying behaviors about Squeak have more that just a few times caused me to become diverted by yet again another tools enhancement run.  The temptation to personalize it, which is exactly what I think Alan Key and Dan Ingalls had in mind, can be great enough to the point of distraction.  You just have to remember that.

Yeah, it's incredibly easy to get lost in a "bug hunt" at times. It's cool that you can do things like what Steve talks about in his post (modifying the browser), but then again - if it were more nailed down, would you spend less time on bug hunts and more time on your actual project? It's worth considering, I think...

posted by James Robertson

Comments

Re: Smalltalk Upsides and Downsides

[anonymous] April 6, 2010 9:27:21.429

Absolutely.

hen again (at least with Squeak, much less so with VW), if it WEREN'T possible, I'd probably run away screaming it was broken rather than keep on using/personalizing it :)

Re: Smalltalk Upsides and Downsides

[Carl Gundel] April 6, 2010 9:55:28.339

The fact that you can fix just about anything is really important. The discipline to not fix something is a feature that doesn't come with any programming language AFAIK. ;-)

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