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mnqpr

@mnqpr

To program is to understand. --K. Nygaard An operating system is a collection of things that don't fit into a language. There shouldn't be one. --D. Ingalls

Joined May 2021
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In a stored-program computer programs and data are interchangeable and uniform. Mainstream operating systems enforce arbitrary modes on us to use programs, to edit program code etc. This weakens the notion of the stored-program concept and makes harder to think about programs as
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analyzable, verifiable data in the n-dimensional concept space of the stored-program computer. The real charm of Smalltalk is that it doesn't enforce these type of modes on us, at least for me.
Vehicle registration plate of Larry Tesler: NO MODES

ALT Vehicle registration plate of Larry Tesler: NO MODES

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A really interesting Hitchhiker's Guide to Glamorous Toolkit would be if @girba could invite @Bertrand_Meyer. #MoldableDevelopment and Meyer's seamlessness property of a development method are akin to each other. Object-Oriented Software Construction (bertrandmeyer.com/OOSC2/)
Seamlessness The object-oriented approach is ambitious: it encompasses the entire software lifecycle. When examining object-oriented solutions, you should check that the method and language, as well as the supporting tools, apply to analysis and design as well as implementation and maintenance. The language, in particular, should be a vehicle for thought which will help you through all stages of your work. The result is a seamless development process, where the generality of the concepts and notations helps reduce the magnitude of the transitions between successive steps in the lifecycle. These requirements exclude two cases, still frequently encountered but equally unsatisfactory: • The use of object-oriented concepts for analysis and design only, with a method and notation that cannot be used to write executable software. • The use of an object-oriented programming language which is not suitable for analysis and design.

ALT Seamlessness The object-oriented approach is ambitious: it encompasses the entire software lifecycle. When examining object-oriented solutions, you should check that the method and language, as well as the supporting tools, apply to analysis and design as well as implementation and maintenance. The language, in particular, should be a vehicle for thought which will help you through all stages of your work. The result is a seamless development process, where the generality of the concepts and notations helps reduce the magnitude of the transitions between successive steps in the lifecycle. These requirements exclude two cases, still frequently encountered but equally unsatisfactory: • The use of object-oriented concepts for analysis and design only, with a method and notation that cannot be used to write executable software. • The use of an object-oriented programming language which is not suitable for analysis and design.

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The mayor of the occupied city in Steinbeck's great novel The Moon Is Down:
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“I have no choice of living or dying, you see, sir--but I do have a choice of how I do it. If I tell them not to fight, they will be sorry, but they will fight. If I tell them to fight, they will be glad, and I who am not a very brave man will have made them a little braver.”
Before I settled down on Smalltalk/@pharoproject/#GToolkit as my first programming language/environment I had a little interlude with Bertrand Meyer's Eiffel @Eiffel_Language . Smalltalk and Eiffel are both created as a vision. These are not just languages but complete solutions:
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language + class library + IDE, vertically integrated just like Apple's products. Now I know why I gravitated toward these languages.
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My current conjecture: TDD, CI/CD and #MoldableDevelopment is a way to replace a belief system based method with a scientific method based one.
Perhaps #MoldableDevelopment is about providing a better learning environment. Programmers constantly have to learn about the problem domain and programmers constantly teach the computer the learned knowledge. Most programming environment concentrate on the "teaching part".
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#GToolkit has a "Mirror of Erised" property because everybody needs a better learning environment not just programmers. It is a data visualiser, a notebook, an IDE, a better learning environment.
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And the learning and teaching can evolve into a really powerful feedback loop. Searching for my Dynabook...
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Software is information describing the manipulation of information.¹ #GToolkit helps explore this recursive property of software. Recursivity is fun and powerful. [1] David Robson: Object-Oriented Software Systems, Byte, Vol. 6. No. 8, page 74.
Tudor Girba (@girba) profile pictureTudor Girba@girba3 Jan 2022
Last year we shipped a first version of #Lepiter and it felt great to see it flying out the door: teapawt.net/feenkcom/status/140524… Lepiter is the latest significant step in our journey to making systems explainable. Here is a behind the scene peak of how we got here. 1/
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