No flame war intended. Maybe this topic has been discussed on this list, but I've never found a satisfactory conclusion. With "today" I mean why to start a software project *from scratch* with Squeak?
My usage today is to load and try packages which only works under Squeak. Yours may be different, so it would be nice to know what squeak developers think about.
What thing does have Squeak that others doesn't? Why would you choose Squeak over Pharo or Cincom Smalltalk?
Cheers,
Hernán
Easy. Squeak gives me just the right proportions of freeness, stability, and control. The TSTTCPW approach leaves me a basic Smalltalk interface to the underlying OS features so I'm able to make and use my _own_ abstractions where I want and employ others' frameworks where I don't.
Personal growth: A great way to learn about a subject is to model it in Smalltalk. Magma and Maui leave me free to create and operate complex domain models with impunity.
If Pharo's method of evolution is creationism, Squeak's is natural-selection. I think Squeakers are interested in harvesting the system more than sowing the system. But sowing _does_ occur naturally by its community of members sharing and harvesting hand-selected improvements appropriate for a general-purpose system. The conservative approach taken means the trunk is usually top-quality, so community productivity remains good too. It's a sane approach geared toward ensuring the software is serving the community and not the other way around.
For these reasons and more, I'll continue to create and nurture new domain models based on Squeak trunk.
- Chris
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 7:00 PM, Hernán Morales Durand hernan.morales@gmail.com wrote:
No flame war intended. Maybe this topic has been discussed on this list, but I've never found a satisfactory conclusion. With "today" I mean why to start a software project *from scratch* with Squeak?
My usage today is to load and try packages which only works under Squeak. Yours may be different, so it would be nice to know what squeak developers think about.
What thing does have Squeak that others doesn't? Why would you choose Squeak over Pharo or Cincom Smalltalk?
Cheers,
Hernán
On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 5:00 PM, Hernán Morales Durand hernan.morales@gmail.com wrote:
No flame war intended. Maybe this topic has been discussed on this list, but I've never found a satisfactory conclusion. With "today" I mean why to start a software project *from scratch* with Squeak?
Well, here's why I chose Squeak for my project.
First, it's a mature open source project. The source code for everything is available, and the history of development goes back for quite a long time. That means that the Squeak ecosystem is quite well developed. There are all sorts of ports, spin-off projects, libraries and applications that have been created over the years. There's a lot of expertise in the community, and they're happy to share it.
Second it's remarkably stable. There is forward progress, and there are changes that break compatibility between releases, but it's not done capriciously. For several years I kept OmniBrowser working all "modern" Squeak releases, from 3.4 to 4.0. I don't bother with that any more, but I think that's a pretty amazing continuity from one release to the next. There are lots projects that were written against older versions of Squeak and haven't been maintained, but which are pretty easy to tweak if we want to use them on the latest version of Squeak. (For example, Ian just updated his VNC implementation.)
Third, the future looks bright. We finally have a solid JIT compiler in Cog, which has already delivered significant performance improvements, and Eliot seems intent on delivering further improvements in the future. I'm really happy with the port of Xtreams from VisualWorks, and looking forward to Environments in Squeak 4.5. Spoon also seems to be coming along steadily and I think it could really improve the scalability of Squeak.
And finally, I just find it a pleasant system to work in. The UI is clean and simple, and with web and mobile apps so common now, looking "weird" isn't nearly as much of an issue as it used to be. I find Lukas' port of the refactoring engine gives us an excellent IDE, absolutely on par with any other Smalltalk system. I don't feel "at home" with any other tools the way I do in Squeak.
As for other Smalltalks, I really like VisualWorks. It's fast, elegant and powerful. It has a great team building it and great community using it. I can't afford it for my current project, but I've used it before, and I'll probably use it again.
Pharo, I feel more ambivalent about. When the project was first announced, I was very interested, because I really felt there was a need for a Squeak-like system that did away with unnecessary baggage. But I don't like the way the project ended up developing. I find the UI visually heavy and awkward to use. I find Polymorph way, way to complicated and all the indirection introduced by themes makes the design difficult to follow. There's a lot of churn in the codebase—gratuitous changes that break compatibility but aren't really improvements. I really like the energy and ambition of the Pharo community, but I find it exhausting trying to follow what's going on and I don't enjoy the confrontational style that it seems to encourage. Pharo is certainly promising, but it hasn't yet delivered on that promise.
Squeak has been my favorite environment for quite a long time, and it still is.
Colin
On Sun, 23 Sep 2012, Hernán Morales Durand wrote:
No flame war intended. Maybe this topic has been discussed on this list, but I've never found a satisfactory conclusion. With "today" I mean why to start a software project *from scratch* with Squeak?
My usage today is to load and try packages which only works under Squeak. Yours may be different, so it would be nice to know what squeak developers think about.
What thing does have Squeak that others doesn't? Why would you choose Squeak over Pharo or Cincom Smalltalk?
Here's a list of advantages which are unique to Squeak according to my knowledge:
Fully transparent developement process. You can easily find the answer to the question: Who changed, what, when and why?.
Great update process. You just press a button and your image will have the latest updates. Since it uses Monticello only, therefore you can do changes in your image and the updates will still work. And you can do it starting from Squeak 3.10.2 (with a few glitches though, but IIRC the whole process only requires human interaction 3 times and most of these involve only pressing a button). All releases are product of the update process, no manual tweaking is/was necessary.
The update process only moves forward. The devs don't push stuff just to see if it will break or not, and roll back if they find it breaks.
Care about backwards compatibility. It's pretty unlikely that you have to make lots of effort to make your code work in the next release. You can see plenty of changes to the system, but the APIs rarely change.
No paid developers. This is a double-edged sword, because developement is obviously slower this way, but the project already proved that it can move forward without money.
Levente
Cheers,
Hernán
Hi Hernán
No flame war intended. Maybe this topic has been discussed on this list, but I've never found a satisfactory conclusion. With "today" I mean why to start a software project *from scratch* with Squeak?
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.smalltalk.squeak.general/162600/focu... shows a similar discussion. Especially my reply in that thread is still valid.
One addition: I have legacy software in Squeak (mainly 3.8) part of which I could easily (no change?) port to 4.2 because it benefited from Cog. This is a good reason to start new projects in Squeak because I feel confident that if I ever need to port them to a future version it will be painless.
Cheers
Herbert
On 12-09-24 8:34 AM, Herbert König wrote:
Hi Hernán
No flame war intended. Maybe this topic has been discussed on this list, but I've never found a satisfactory conclusion. With "today" I mean why to start a software project *from scratch* with Squeak?
I believe that human beings are more peaceful and fulfilled when they are able to try to realize their potential. This cannot happen without a spirit of intellectual freedom. Of the Smalltalks, Squeak is the community with the greatest interest in and respect for intellectual freedom. Pursuant of that the Etoys project endeavors to help the most number of people to realize their potential. It may sound high minded, but I see a inverse correlation between people's ability to realize their potential and the amount of war, rape, murder, and terror in the world. Intellectual freedom is required as a foundation.
Squeak is the Athens of Smalltalk. We are not the Sparta of Pharo or the Persian despots of Cincom. Sparta had its moments against Sparta, but if you visit it today, it's an empty field. As opposed to the Acropolis. Which of the two is more inspiring?
The question is simple. Do you want to be assimilated into a vision created by the managers of Cincom and Pharo? Or do you want to be assisted by means of software in realizing what is lying dormant inside of you?
The code is just the clay. It's the spirit that give is shape. Ours community is the most intellectually free.
Chris
Guys thank you for the answers so far. It is good to see this feedback from the community!
Hernán
2012/9/24 Chris Cunnington smalltalktelevision@gmail.com
On 12-09-24 8:34 AM, Herbert König wrote:
Hi Hernán
No flame war intended. Maybe this topic has been discussed on this list, but I've never found a satisfactory conclusion. With "today" I mean why to start a software project *from scratch* with Squeak?
I believe that human beings are more peaceful and fulfilled when they are able to try to realize their potential. This cannot happen without a spirit of intellectual freedom. Of the Smalltalks, Squeak is the community with the greatest interest in and respect for intellectual freedom. Pursuant of that the Etoys project endeavors to help the most number of people to realize their potential. It may sound high minded, but I see a inverse correlation between people's ability to realize their potential and the amount of war, rape, murder, and terror in the world. Intellectual freedom is required as a foundation.
Squeak is the Athens of Smalltalk. We are not the Sparta of Pharo or the Persian despots of Cincom. Sparta had its moments against Sparta, but if you visit it today, it's an empty field. As opposed to the Acropolis. Which of the two is more inspiring?
The question is simple. Do you want to be assimilated into a vision created by the managers of Cincom and Pharo? Or do you want to be assisted by means of software in realizing what is lying dormant inside of you?
The code is just the clay. It's the spirit that give is shape. Ours community is the most intellectually free.
Chris
squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org
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Chris Cunnington -
Chris Muller -
Colin Putney -
Herbert König -
Hernán Morales Durand -
Levente Uzonyi -
Stéphane Rollandin