[Edu-sig] Tracing the Dynabook: A Dissertation

[ajsiegel at optonline.net]

Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> Am Jan 19, 2007 um 15:16  schrieb Arthur:
> 
> Then I do not understand at all why you are picking on Kay and  
> Smalltalk/Squeak/Etoys. Peeking under the hood is *precisely* what  
> this is about. In Squeak, you can inspect *every* UI object with a  
> built-in, always-available tool, the "halo". Two clicks later, you're  
> at the code, and if you know what you're doing, you can change every  
> last bit of it, taking effect immediatelty. Now try that in about any  
> other GUI - find the code that's behind *this* button and change it.  
> Good luck.
> 

In a world of ubiquitous Smalltalk there might be some sense to this story.  
Though I have never been motivated to follow that vision very far
down its road.

If I was forced to consider a ubiqitous something, and the decision 
was mine, and I would look at it carefully ;)

But since the world of ubiqituous anything is not the world I live in, or
want to live in, nor thinkwe should pretending there is, I dispute that 
Smalltalk/Squeak/Etoys visiion is one that offers transparency in 
any meaningful sense.

I consider Pata/Pata, for example, an implementation of the Squeak 
vision of transparency, as a "for example".

Very quirky vision.

Art