[Cuis-dev] Lynn Conway (1938-2024) [was: change image in ImageMorph]

[Boris Shingarov]

> Smalltalk-80
> was a high success, has had a tremendous influence in software technology,
> and is still the most powerful practical programming language for most
> problems.

100% agree.

> Hence, Cuis.

Just to avoid any potential misunderstanding: I am NOT suggesting
that Cuis somehow loses through being a Smalltalk-80.  Very far from it.

What I *am* trying to say, is, Alan Kay and others at PARC gave us this
priceless gift of Smalltalk; and to repay them for this gift, uncritical
worshipping would be the worst way.  And to blindly accept the wholesale
design of Smalltalk-80 "just because that's the system the Great Fathers
built", cargo-cult-science-style, would be diametrically opposite to the
spirit of Smalltalk (and I am sure would leave Alan Kay very unhappy).
To just copy Dan Ingalls' toys [of the 1970s], is NOT to be doing
Smalltalk.  This is why I am trying to build my own Smalltalk [of the
2020s], and one fundamental prerequisite is to clearly separate what is
Smalltalk from what were design decisions dictated by the limitations
of the 1970s, when we are looking at the artifact we are holding in our
hands (i.e. Smalltalk-80 system).

Obviously Cuis is on the good side here because you are building your
own whole system, so we are indisputably on the same page already.
Yet at the same time, I *have* experienced resistance coming from the
"don't-change-what-Great-Fathers-built" attitude of a part of the
currently-existing Smalltalk community, and this is what I am trying to
improve when posting essays like that original "Lynn Conway" email.