How a short trip to Python-land taught me why Smalltalk is hard
I am not actually a Smalltalk newbie, but still find it sometomes hard to get into areas I've never touched before. For some stuff that was related mostly to problems with encoding and decoding between utf-8 and utf-85 on both Windows and Linux and strange differences between these platforms, I thought I'd use something that peopl "out there" use daily. I chose python. I had never written anything in Python before, but it was easy to stipple together a few working programs. It took me just a few hours to find out about Skyper and some important language constructs and stuff. It was a pleasant journey for two reasons: * No need to learn any tools. Just an editor and a command line and you're on yur journey * You find lots of documentation and examples on the web. It feels like VB in the days: type a few keywords into your web browser and copy the sources for a 70% solution of your problem Back when I was young and cared for whether my preferred language was popular or not, I would be depressed by the experience. Remember, I tried Python because things were hard in Smalltalk. So spot the message here... ;-) Joachim
Although I too would much prefer to work in Smalltalk, extenuating circumstances pushed me into C++ and Python during the first half of this year. Much of my experience reinforced my bias toward Smalltalk, but I did find some aspects of the tools to be attractive. My goal for ESUG is to present some of lessons and offer some on-line resources that make Smalltalk a bit more approachable. In particular, I’m looking at Ace, a web-based code editor used in Cloud 9 (https://ace.c9.io/ <https://ace.c9.io/>) and the Jupyter notebook (http://jupyter.org/ <http://jupyter.org/>). Cheers! James Foster
On Jul 6, 2018, at 6:36 AM, jtuchel@objektfabrik.de wrote:
I am not actually a Smalltalk newbie, but still find it sometomes hard to get into areas I've never touched before. For some stuff that was related mostly to problems with encoding and decoding between utf-8 and utf-85 on both Windows and Linux and strange differences between these platforms, I thought I'd use something that peopl "out there" use daily.
I chose python. I had never written anything in Python before, but it was easy to stipple together a few working programs. It took me just a few hours to find out about Skyper and some important language constructs and stuff. It was a pleasant journey for two reasons:
No need to learn any tools. Just an editor and a command line and you're on yur journey You find lots of documentation and examples on the web. It feels like VB in the days: type a few keywords into your web browser and copy the sources for a 70% solution of your problem Back when I was young and cared for whether my preferred language was popular or not, I would be depressed by the experience. Remember, I tried Python because things were hard in Smalltalk.
So spot the message here... ;-)
Joachim
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jgfoster wrote
My goal for ESUG is to present some of lessons and offer some on-line resources that make Smalltalk a bit more approachable
Cool! Looking forward to it :) ----- Cheers, Sean -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/ESUG-f1589038.html
So what do you do to improve the situation of our community? I mean do you think documentation autowrite itself? Did you write something that others can use? You see from time to time I would love to read docs that I did not write. If people would follow sven excellent practices our framework would be a lot better documented. Stef
On 6 Jul 2018, at 15:36, jtuchel@objektfabrik.de wrote:
I am not actually a Smalltalk newbie, but still find it sometomes hard to get into areas I've never touched before. For some stuff that was related mostly to problems with encoding and decoding between utf-8 and utf-85 on both Windows and Linux and strange differences between these platforms, I thought I'd use something that peopl "out there" use daily.
I chose python. I had never written anything in Python before, but it was easy to stipple together a few working programs. It took me just a few hours to find out about Skyper and some important language constructs and stuff. It was a pleasant journey for two reasons:
No need to learn any tools. Just an editor and a command line and you're on yur journey You find lots of documentation and examples on the web. It feels like VB in the days: type a few keywords into your web browser and copy the sources for a 70% solution of your problem Back when I was young and cared for whether my preferred language was popular or not, I would be depressed by the experience. Remember, I tried Python because things were hard in Smalltalk.
So spot the message here... ;-)
Joachim
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-------------------------------------------- Stéphane Ducasse http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr http://www.synectique.eu / http://www.pharo.org 03 59 35 87 52 Assistant: Julie Jonas FAX 03 59 57 78 50 TEL 03 59 35 86 16 S. Ducasse - Inria 40, avenue Halley, Parc Scientifique de la Haute Borne, Bât.A, Park Plaza Villeneuve d'Ascq 59650 France
Hi Stef, good point - the days when I was into Smalltalk advocacy seem to be long gone. Point taken ;-) Like yours, my day has roughly about 24 hours and I am trying to build and run a business and a family. A few years ago, it was way easier for me to blog and podcast and stuff. Smalltalk advocacy is not on my agenda very often these days - I hope I can improve on that. +1 on Sven's excellent work, both in code and documentation as well as his helpfulness on all forums. Joachim Am 09.07.18 um 21:49 schrieb Stéphane Ducasse:
So what do you do to improve the situation of our community? I mean do you think documentation autowrite itself? Did you write something that others can use?
You see from time to time I would love to read docs that I did not write. If people would follow sven excellent practices our framework would be a lot better documented.
Stef
On 6 Jul 2018, at 15:36, jtuchel@objektfabrik.de <mailto:jtuchel@objektfabrik.de> wrote:
I am not actually a Smalltalk newbie, but still find it sometomes hard to get into areas I've never touched before. For some stuff that was related mostly to problems with encoding and decoding between utf-8 and utf-85 on both Windows and Linux and strange differences between these platforms, I thought I'd use something that peopl "out there" use daily.
I chose python. I had never written anything in Python before, but it was easy to stipple together a few working programs. It took me just a few hours to find out about Skyper and some important language constructs and stuff. It was a pleasant journey for two reasons:
* No need to learn any tools. Just an editor and a command line and you're on yur journey * You find lots of documentation and examples on the web. It feels like VB in the days: type a few keywords into your web browser and copy the sources for a 70% solution of your problem
Back when I was young and cared for whether my preferred language was popular or not, I would be depressed by the experience. Remember, I tried Python because things were hard in Smalltalk.
So spot the message here... ;-)
Joachim
_______________________________________________ Esug-list mailing list Esug-list@lists.esug.org <mailto:Esug-list@lists.esug.org> http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org
-------------------------------------------- Stéphane Ducasse http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr http://www.synectique.eu / http://www.pharo.org 03 59 35 87 52 Assistant: Julie Jonas FAX 03 59 57 78 50 TEL 03 59 35 86 16 S. Ducasse - Inria 40, avenue Halley, Parc Scientifique de la Haute Borne, Bât.A, Park Plaza Villeneuve d'Ascq 59650 France
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel mailto:jtuchel@objektfabrik.de Fliederweg 1 http://www.objektfabrik.de D-71640 Ludwigsburg http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com Telefon: +49 7141 56 10 86 0 Fax: +49 7141 56 10 86 1
I'm not talking about advocacy :). And Pharo is for growing business but also in a community manner because all together sharing code we get stronger. I wish you a lot of business.
Hi Stef,
good point - the days when I was into Smalltalk advocacy seem to be long gone. Point taken ;-) Like yours, my day has roughly about 24 hours and I am trying to build and run a business and a family. A few years ago, it was way easier for me to blog and podcast and stuff. Smalltalk advocacy is not on my agenda very often these days - I hope I can improve on that.
+1 on Sven's excellent work, both in code and documentation as well as his helpfulness on all forums.
Joachim
Am 09.07.18 um 21:49 schrieb Stéphane Ducasse:
So what do you do to improve the situation of our community? I mean do you think documentation autowrite itself? Did you write something that others can use?
You see from time to time I would love to read docs that I did not write. If people would follow sven excellent practices our framework would be a lot better documented.
Stef
On 6 Jul 2018, at 15:36, jtuchel@objektfabrik.de <mailto:jtuchel@objektfabrik.de> wrote:
I am not actually a Smalltalk newbie, but still find it sometomes hard to get into areas I've never touched before. For some stuff that was related mostly to problems with encoding and decoding between utf-8 and utf-85 on both Windows and Linux and strange differences between these platforms, I thought I'd use something that peopl "out there" use daily.
I chose python. I had never written anything in Python before, but it was easy to stipple together a few working programs. It took me just a few hours to find out about Skyper and some important language constructs and stuff. It was a pleasant journey for two reasons:
No need to learn any tools. Just an editor and a command line and you're on yur journey You find lots of documentation and examples on the web. It feels like VB in the days: type a few keywords into your web browser and copy the sources for a 70% solution of your problem Back when I was young and cared for whether my preferred language was popular or not, I would be depressed by the experience. Remember, I tried Python because things were hard in Smalltalk.
So spot the message here... ;-)
Joachim
_______________________________________________ Esug-list mailing list Esug-list@lists.esug.org <mailto:Esug-list@lists.esug.org> http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org <http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org>
-------------------------------------------- Stéphane Ducasse http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr <http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/> http://www.synectique.eu <http://www.synectique.eu/> / http://www.pharo.org <http://www.pharo.org/> 03 59 35 87 52 Assistant: Julie Jonas FAX 03 59 57 78 50 TEL 03 59 35 86 16 S. Ducasse - Inria 40, avenue Halley, Parc Scientifique de la Haute Borne, Bât.A, Park Plaza Villeneuve d'Ascq 59650 France
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel mailto:jtuchel@objektfabrik.de <mailto:jtuchel@objektfabrik.de> Fliederweg 1 http://www.objektfabrik.de <http://www.objektfabrik.de/> D-71640 Ludwigsburg http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com <http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com/> Telefon: +49 7141 56 10 86 0 Fax: +49 7141 56 10 86 1
-------------------------------------------- Stéphane Ducasse http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr http://www.synectique.eu / http://www.pharo.org 03 59 35 87 52 Assistant: Julie Jonas FAX 03 59 57 78 50 TEL 03 59 35 86 16 S. Ducasse - Inria 40, avenue Halley, Parc Scientifique de la Haute Borne, Bât.A, Park Plaza Villeneuve d'Ascq 59650 France
On Fri, 6 Jul 2018 at 16:37, jtuchel@objektfabrik.de < jtuchel@objektfabrik.de> wrote:
I am not actually a Smalltalk newbie, but still find it sometomes hard to get into areas I've never touched before. For some stuff that was related mostly to problems with encoding and decoding between utf-8 and utf-85 on both Windows and Linux and strange differences between these platforms, I thought I'd use something that peopl "out there" use daily.
I chose python. I had never written anything in Python before, but it was easy to stipple together a few working programs. It took me just a few hours to find out about Skyper and some important language constructs and stuff. It was a pleasant journey for two reasons:
- No need to learn any tools. Just an editor and a command line and you're on yur journey
Ever tried to write C bindings for Python? Try. I wanna see how you would do that without proper tools (C IDE, CMake, Makefiles etc yadda yadda)
- You find lots of documentation and examples on the web. It feels like VB in the days: type a few keywords into your web browser and copy the sources for a 70% solution of your problem
Back when I was young and cared for whether my preferred language was popular or not, I would be depressed by the experience. Remember, I tried Python because things were hard in Smalltalk.
You can find even more if you use HTML/CSS/Javascript. So why bothering with python? :) P.S. my stone hammer way better than your steel hydraulic press. And besides it is easy to use, and there's a lot of documentation and how-to's for it. So spot the message here... ;-)
Joachim
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-- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.
Hey guys - let’s not shoot the messenger on this. All feedback gratefully received, we know there’s still lots of work to do even after the excellent progress that has been made. I know at times I get frustrated too , but am inspired by some of the great things going on. Equally it hurts to get negative feedback too. We need to rally together to get some of this stuff finished, and keep chipping away at things. I’d like to better understand the original problem - do we still have this encoding/decoding problem in Pharo 7? And can we ensure common things are documented in a clear place for others to follow. I think we have a bit of a documentation versioning issue - as lots of old things seem to come up in search results (our SEO is not brilliant on this - although a move to github might help a lot if we can create good pointers in readme.md files). This doesn’t seem like an unsolvable problem, and I’d like to see us learn from someone who has experienced something concrete. Tim Sent from my iPhone
On 12 Jul 2018, at 17:23, Igor Stasenko <siguctua@gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, 6 Jul 2018 at 16:37, jtuchel@objektfabrik.de <jtuchel@objektfabrik.de> wrote: I am not actually a Smalltalk newbie, but still find it sometomes hard to get into areas I've never touched before. For some stuff that was related mostly to problems with encoding and decoding between utf-8 and utf-85 on both Windows and Linux and strange differences between these platforms, I thought I'd use something that peopl "out there" use daily.
I chose python. I had never written anything in Python before, but it was easy to stipple together a few working programs. It took me just a few hours to find out about Skyper and some important language constructs and stuff. It was a pleasant journey for two reasons:
No need to learn any tools. Just an editor and a command line and you're on yur journey Ever tried to write C bindings for Python? Try. I wanna see how you would do that without proper tools (C IDE, CMake, Makefiles etc yadda yadda) You find lots of documentation and examples on the web. It feels like VB in the days: type a few keywords into your web browser and copy the sources for a 70% solution of your problem Back when I was young and cared for whether my preferred language was popular or not, I would be depressed by the experience. Remember, I tried Python because things were hard in Smalltalk.
You can find even more if you use HTML/CSS/Javascript. So why bothering with python? :)
P.S. my stone hammer way better than your steel hydraulic press. And besides it is easy to use, and there's a lot of documentation and how-to's for it.
So spot the message here... ;-)
Joachim
_______________________________________________ Esug-list mailing list Esug-list@lists.esug.org http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org
-- Best regards, Igor Stasenko. _______________________________________________ Esug-list mailing list Esug-list@lists.esug.org http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org
participants (6)
-
Igor Stasenko -
James Foster -
jtuchel＠objektfabrik.de -
Sean P. DeNigris -
Stéphane Ducasse -
Tim Mackinnon