Re: LFM + LFSP = LFE?

[Geoffrey Knauth <address@hidden>]

On Thursday, Jun 12, 2003, at 05:27 US/Eastern, Avi Bryant wrote:
> The problem is convincing them to get past their assumptions
> and prejudices for long enough to actually give it a fair shot.  That's
> the main barrier, IMO, that keeps Smalltalk (and probably many other
> worthy languages) from being truly Masses-friendly.

I think the barrier is something else.

Smalltalk environments allow most anyone to change most anything.  
Developers who compile source into binaries usually don't want 
"ordinary" users to have that power.  This comes up when I have to 
defend my use of a "scripting" language.  Managers are afraid that 
ignorant or hostile people will get into the system and wreck havoc.  
They want to know how we can restrict certain kinds of changes while 
allowing others.

On a slow day in 1993 I was using Smalltalk and I redefined the number 
2, `true' and `nil' just to see what would happen.  (My VM locked up.)  
I hear someone made sure I can't do that again.

Geoffrey
--
Geoffrey S. Knauth | http://knauth.org/gsk