lack of contributors

[Brian Rice]

On Apr 4, 2006, at 5:05 PM, Waldemar Kornewald wrote:

> Brian Rice wrote:
>>> 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.

Fine.

> 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.

Brackets to denote lazy / repeatable evaluation is some kind of  
problem? Why?

> 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...).

Well, yeah, again it's a REFERENCE, which means it's only there to  
tell you exactly what Slate does in technical terms. You guys need to  
write the tutorials.

>> 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.

It's not blocked by the wiki.

> 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.

Even so, try to fix the technical access problem, not pollute someone  
else's work.

--
-Brian
http://tunes.org/~water/brice.vcf

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