[Edu-sig] The keyhole problem and learning environments

[kirby urner]

On 7/14/06, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/14/06, kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't get the impression Alan Kay is leading the Smalltalk community
> > anymore.  He told us at the summit that he's a SmallTalk slayer.
>

Also, the "slayer" moniker isn't completely out of the blue.  Here's
Alan using this very metaphor in a presentation, although it's Squeak
doing the slaying (funny picture).

"""
Unlike Java, this runs bit-identical on every machine -- we invented this 20
years ago.

Squeak is its own OS.

This kicks PowerPoint's ass. PPT is retrograde. Applications and OSes are
retrograde. We killed them in the 1970s, but we used the wrong kind of wood when
we staked that vampire.
"""
from "Alan Kay's talk at O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference 2003"
by Cory Doctorow http://www.craphound.com/kayetcon2003

What I glean from studying Guido's, Alan's and Bruce Eckel's writings,
is this thing about late binding.  You do it all in runtime,
basically.  You get to be dynamic, aren't under the thumb of a finicky
compiler that requires you to predeclare, and thence to "nail down"
all your code.  Nope, don't have to do it that way, as SmallTalk and
Python both prove.

Kirby