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Re: Questions for a language designer



On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 07:47:03AM -0300, Nahuel Greco wrote:

Hu Nahuel,

> On Fri, 30 May 2003 00:26:34 -0400
> David Herman <dherman@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> 
> > Have you looked at Source Code In Database (SCID)? It's a bit messianic 
> > in tone, but interesting.
> > 
> 
> All of these ideas (as others) are gravitating towards an Smalltalk
> model.


Yes, there are many ideas from SmallTalk that have hopefully spread.

I could restate my statements using the Smalltalk terminology with the
Model View Controller pattern. The difference is that the
parsing/unparsing loop would not be cast in stone, so that users can
evolve richer, more expressive, concrete syntaxes.

The abstract syntax is the reference format, it is the Model.
Any unparsing in some concrete syntax is a View.

In my opinion, Smalltalk did not go far enough to apply the MVC
pattern to its literate part because of its authors obsession to
mimick the real work or create small physical world, mostly graphical,
as an educational tool for children. An appropriate nursing
environment in the physical world will always do better than what
SmallTalk could do. 

On the other hand, in the last decade, we have seen nothing real
substantially new in the domain of digital literacy. Part of the
problem is that most good Open Source literate tool are confined in
a pure "teletype model" when modern displays could bring richer
digital literate model.

But dollars flow more easily in the direction of tacky 3D immersive
virtual worlds or fancy humanoids robots. How sad.


> 
> Saludos,
> 
> Nahuel Greco.
>