exploratory programming

Albertina Lourenci lourenci at lsi.usp.br
Fri Aug 23 14:42:26 UTC 2002



James McCartney wrote:

> OK this is not directly to do with Self so I'll try to keep it short.
>
> On Thursday, August 22, 2002, at 10:56  AM, Albertina Lourenci wrote:
>
> > Is this a synonym for exploratory programming?
>
> Not exactly. Though, I guess exploratory programming is enabled by
> interactive bottom up programming.
>

If Smalltak is a merge of OO paradigm and LISP, could someone tell
me what's the difference between Smalltalk and LISP?
Also point references to the so-called exploratory programming?
How Self is different from Smalltalk? How does Actors influence
Self more than Smalltalk?
I believe it is pretty easy to understand typing system. There are
a hundred of paper about this. But literature about untyped systems
is very scattered and hard to find. Probably this is the main reason
most programmers stick to classes and typed systems.



>
> > I mean if I read this book I may grasp the gist
> > of the  Smalltalk programming environment, I mean
> > finally understand how Self is built?
>
> The book will tell you about macros in general and more specifically in
> Lisp.
> I'm not sure how you would do the same things in Smalltalk/Self.
>
> > Is CLOS and Smalltalk and Self built alike?
>
> Hard to answer. There are common elements and great differences. By
> preference, I'm more in the Smalltalk/Self camp than the Lisp/Scheme one.S
>  o I can't say a lot about Lisp, but I do appreciate and envy the power ofa
>   few Lisp/Scheme things like continuations and macros.
>

My little experience with CLOS made clear it is not exactly a very
expressive language. To achieve high  expressiveness I should implement
everything in a Blackboard architecture. This means everything was driven
by rather anticipated commands. A far cry from the game experience
my ecodesign model and its underlying geometric model provide.
For me the interaction paradigm is better exploited in Self and this
makes programming a  rather magic  experience. Like in Beta one
should know a lot before trying to implement anything. One cannot
experience stitching things together. And then naturally undoing and
trying better ways. Everything must be born perfect rather like in a
top down way.


>
> > I keep awaiting your directions. Please help me out!
> > Albertina
>
> I cannot give directions, only point the way I've come, since I am a
> wanderer myself.
>

I believe everybody in computer science is rather a wanderer. This
does not sound that bad, because despite all we are moving. The
question is are we moving fast enough to prevent mankind from
collapse? Am I the only one in a hurry? Maybe I am wrong and
everybody is right.


>
> --
> --- james mccartney   james at audiosynth.com   <http://www.audiosynth.com>
> SuperCollider - a real time synthesis programming language for the
> PowerMac.
> <ftp://www.audiosynth.com/pub/updates/SC2.2.16.sea.hqx>
>
>
>
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