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| Bruce Badger |
 Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 2:23 am |
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Look at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry for Smalltalk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk
There is a box entitled "Major Programming Languages". Smalltalk is
listed as an "academic" language.
Is this a good or a bad thing? |
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| Michael Lucas-Smith |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 2:23 am |
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Quote: Look at the bottom of the Wikipedia entry for Smalltalk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk
There is a box entitled "Major Programming Languages". Smalltalk is
listed as an "academic" language.
Is this a good or a bad thing?
I think it's bad.. I tried moving it - we'll see if it gets reverted or not. |
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| Jecel |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 7:29 am |
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Independently of whether it is good or bad, it is simply wrong. The
only brush with the academic world that the language had (as far as I
remember) was Little Smalltalk. |
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| Geoff |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 11:35 am |
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I asked my old professors about this and he told me that the people who are
left in cs classes (enrollment is way down), they all demand java.
--g |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 4:26 pm |
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Which tells me that way too many CS classes have become nothing more
than vocational training... |
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| macta |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 7:49 pm |
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Hi Marten,
Quote: It's the industry demand to get people, who can be used at once
without spending money for additional training. Therefore the best CS
would be something like:
* learn about all products from Microsoft
* learn Java, PHP and all .NET languages
Ok, Just kidding 
OK maybe I talk from a slightly biased industry standpoint - but I know that
at ThoughtWorks when we interview people we expect a good knowledge of Java
or C# but what will get you through the final interview is to be able to
talk about objects, testing, design, refactoring etc.
All things that if you have learned/used Smalltalk will let you ace that
final interview. Too often people look good on paper, maybe they even write
some reasonable code (you have to submit some) but if you get that far you
will need to talk someone through that code and talk about improvements and
you will need to talk about objects and not just encapsulation but dynamic
polymorphism.
We tend to find that people who come from MS language backgrounds (especially
moving up from VB) struggle with this. In fact many Java programmers too.
Tim |
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| Isaac Gouy |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 8:07 pm |
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Jecel wrote:
Quote: Independently of whether it is good or bad, it is simply wrong. The
only brush with the academic world that the language had (as far as I
remember) was Little Smalltalk.
I don't really know what you mean by "only brush with the academic
world".
I do know that there are Smalltalk technical reports from "the academic
world".
http://www-ksl.stanford.edu/testfiles/piernot/smtkinfo/smtktechreports.html
I do know that for many years The Open University course "M206
Computing: An Object-Oriented Approach" was based on Smalltalk, and
this year M206 has been replaced by courses based on Java. |
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| Isaac Gouy |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 8:12 pm |
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jarober@gmail.com wrote:
Quote: Which tells me that way too many CS classes have become nothing more
than vocational training...
Are you saying there's so little demand for Smalltalk programmers that
Smalltalk based CS classes couldn't sensibly be described as vocational
training? |
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| Cesar Rabak |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 8:13 pm |
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jarober@gmail.com escreveu:
Quote: Which tells me that way too many CS classes have become nothing more
than vocational training...
I think we're seeing the half bottle as empty here: _if_ we had a big
market for Smalltalk and we had it as the language of choice for CS
curricula would we have this same attitude?
OTOH, with a bit of history: in the earlier nineties I participated of a
mailing list discussing the teaching of OO in the first year of CS coursesą.
At that time, Java being just born it led to certain jokes˛, and
obviously was discussed as alternative, etc.
We know what happened and how the languages evolved.
Question is: what would be a compeling reason for suggesting teaching
Smalltalk in CS courses *today*?
Or if you allow me (I'm trying to hook in B. Nemec's post as well), IOW:
what are the concepts or technologies that by not being exposed to
Smalltalk the CS student (perhaps other courses that have to put some
intro to programming as well) would make it lacking be in theory or in
craft?
HTH
--
Cesar Rabak
[1] yes! this has been a revolutionary concept some time ago...
[2] a favorite in the postings was that Java standed for "Just Another
Version of Ada"  |
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| Cesar Rabak |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 8:52 pm |
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Isaac Gouy escreveu:
Quote: jarober@gmail.com wrote:
Which tells me that way too many CS classes have become nothing more
than vocational training...
Are you saying there's so little demand for Smalltalk programmers that
Smalltalk based CS classes couldn't sensibly be described as vocational
training?
Isaac,
Does this conclusion bother you?
How many mainstream software packages (ERP, CRM, etc.) have Smalltalk as
core or user language? How many use Java for at least one of it?
Can we _really_ say to our daughters and sons that if they do the effort
of learning Smalltalk they'll have a plus in their academic CVs for
getting a job in the present market?
I thinks this is another point hooking to Bob Nemec's 'Baby steps' post...
my 0.019999...
--
Cesar Rabak |
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| Isaac Gouy |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 9:25 pm |
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Cesar Rabak wrote:
Quote: Isaac Gouy escreveu:
jarober@gmail.com wrote:
Which tells me that way too many CS classes have become nothing more
than vocational training...
Are you saying there's so little demand for Smalltalk programmers that
Smalltalk based CS classes couldn't sensibly be described as vocational
training?
Isaac,
Does this conclusion bother you?
Sometimes I become sentimental. (And sometimes, when I tire of hearing
attacks on X or Y motivated by envy, I become sarcastic.)
Quote:
How many mainstream software packages (ERP, CRM, etc.) have Smalltalk as
core or user language? How many use Java for at least one of it?
Can we _really_ say to our daughters and sons that if they do the effort
of learning Smalltalk they'll have a plus in their academic CVs for
getting a job in the present market?
I thinks this is another point hooking to Bob Nemec's 'Baby steps' post...
my 0.019999...
--
Cesar Rabak |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 9:28 pm |
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What I'm saying is this: catering to the short term demands of students
(I need Java so I can get a job tomorrow) is not the same thing as
teaching CS. Is a CS curriculum supposed to teach CS, or Java?
It's like taking a history course, expecting to learn about European
History - and then finding Michael Moore or Ann Coulter as the
instructor. |
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| Cesar Rabak |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 10:08 pm |
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Isaac Gouy escreveu:
Quote: Cesar Rabak wrote:
Isaac Gouy escreveu:
jarober@gmail.com wrote:
Which tells me that way too many CS classes have become nothing more
than vocational training...
Are you saying there's so little demand for Smalltalk programmers that
Smalltalk based CS classes couldn't sensibly be described as vocational
training?
Isaac,
Does this conclusion bother you?
Sometimes I become sentimental. (And sometimes, when I tire of hearing
attacks on X or Y motivated by envy, I become sarcastic.)
I can understand this, although I don't think it may help to change
things, even more to the direction I think we'd like!
Quote: How many mainstream software packages (ERP, CRM, etc.) have Smalltalk as
core or user language? How many use Java for at least one of it?
Can we _really_ say to our daughters and sons that if they do the effort
of learning Smalltalk they'll have a plus in their academic CVs for
getting a job in the present market?
I thinks this is another point hooking to Bob Nemec's 'Baby steps' post...
OTOH, can you think on these other topics? |
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| Cesar Rabak |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 10:17 pm |
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jarober@gmail.com escreveu:
Quote: What I'm saying is this: catering to the short term demands of students
(I need Java so I can get a job tomorrow) is not the same thing as
teaching CS.
I do agree in full, so let's go on the bottom line:
Quote: Is a CS curriculum supposed to teach CS, or Java?
I do not see *any* conflict here. You can have a thorough and deep
instruction on CS and have Java as a language for implementing some of
the concepts.
Now, since to materialize a lot of things we need to program in a
language, what's the problem it is one the mainstream onesą?
Quote: It's like taking a history course, expecting to learn about European
History - and then finding Michael Moore or Ann Coulter as the
instructor.
If they follow the syllabus, what's the problem? Or is some kind of
prejudice in the paragraph above ;-)
Is there some scientific evidence that learning Smalltalk teaches more
CS than doing the same course in Java˛?
--
Cesar Rabak
[1] No matter how we agree or disagree it /should/ be or not!
[2] or for the sake of argument, any other language? |
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| Marten Feldtmann |
| Posted: Sun May 21, 2006 10:20 pm |
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jarober@gmail.com schrieb:
Quote: (I need Java so I can get a job tomorrow) is not the same thing as
teaching CS. Is a CS curriculum supposed to teach CS, or Java?
It's the industry demand to get people, who can be used at once
without spending money for additional training. Therefore the best
CS would be something like:
* learn about all products from Microsoft
* learn Java, PHP and all .NET languages
Ok, Just kidding :-)
It's also the other side: students are no more the persons without
no knowledge and they see their view of the the IT world - and they
know about the publicity known stuff: Java, .NET - and they demand
to be learned in those languages - and not in Lisp or Smalltalk.
Marten
--
Marten Feldtmann - Germany - Software Development
Information regarding VA Smalltalk and DMS-system
"MSK - Mien Schrievkrom" at: www.schrievkrom.de |
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