lack of contributors

[Waldemar Kornewald]

Brian Rice wrote:
>>> So, if you want this to happen, help me make it happen. Do some  
>>> work  to make site improvements or blurbs that will speak to the  
>>> right  people. Be a language marketer. Someone has to do it.
>> I already tried to promote it. Most people shy away from complex  
>> syntax. That was the reason for my earlier mail suggesting to at  
>> least remove all this "@(... traits)" stuff and reduce the use of  
>> ugly chars like "#!@%$&`|".
> 
> Somehow I doubt you are introducing this to people who would find  
> Slate naturally appealing. You also have an aggressive resistance to  
> Smalltalk syntax, which is likely to be a hidden undercurrent in any  
> way that you communicate about it.
> [...] 
> You just don't like Smalltalk syntax. Admit it. It's describable on  
> one page of paper for Squeakers, and yet you're making this big deal  
> about it. It's a syntax that 12-year-olds can learn. Don't be such a  
> stubborn person.

Oh, please stop talking about this "you don't like Smalltalk" stuff. I 
just see that there are a few issues, but no syntax is perfect:

(x < 5) /\ (x > 9) ifTrue: [...].
vs
(x < 5) \/ [x > 9] ifTrue: [...].

and

x < 5 ifTrue: [...].
vs
[x < 5] whileTrue: [...].

I'm not suggesting to drop Smalltalk syntax. I do love the fact that it 
forms nice sentences which makes code highly readable. I just think that 
we can improve it (mostly with an IDE). I spent much time on thinking 
about alternatives, but Smalltalk has the best syntax I've seen. I hope 
that the issue is closed now.

What I wanted to say is that the syntax *can* be described in a few 
sentences (especially if you are talking to programmers), but the 
current manual blows it up too much. This is what I wanted to fix. Also, 
I wanted to make the front page and other website content understandable 
without having studied computer science...really, a few years ago I 
would not have understood *one word* (and you were talking about 
twelve-year-olds...).

> Uh, that is not the purpose of the infogami, and I am not going to do  
> that. If anything, the infogami was started at least partly because  
> the wiki was unavailable. In fact, I am going to stay away from it  
> and let it be user-driven.

I would have placed it on the wiki, but I still don't have access to 
tunes.org and an IBM site. My IP range (89.*) seems to be blocked (I 
switched to a new ISP...). Maybe I can get around this somehow.

Matt Revelle wrote:
> For example, listing the pros and cons of prototyping is helpful to
> new users, but suggesting alternative implementations on the same page
> is just going to confuse them.

I just wanted a place to put suggestions on and do some planning. This 
will be removed and cleaned up after everything has been discussed. 
Later, this should become part of the website, anyway.

Bye,
Waldemar