15 Jul
2000
15 Jul
'00
6:23 p.m.
I have always
wondered what was going to go in that fourth book.
Are you saying that the project was started? (I assumed it was
never started.) Do you know any more details?
No... it was essentially just a manuscript stored on one of
the Smalltalk workstations, and it had been evolving to cover
the changes in MVC since back when it called the Form-Path-Image
paradigm. At some point, Stephen T. Pope (I think it was him)
used it to master MVC, and he then in turn wrote a short paper
describing the use of MVC. But Adele got distracted with running
PPS and nver got back to playing author.
I think Steve's paper is available on the web. The two-volume
_Inside Smalltalk_ set is a decent substitute
for the missing book, but the code and the page layout are not up
to Xerox' high standards. The text is well-written in some ways
but badly written in others.
These books are some of the few ST resources I don't have. A non-commercial version of the current descendent of
PPS and ST
(VisualWorks) can be downloaded and used for free. But Squeak is
actually much better, IMHO.
Yes, Squeak is a nice piece of work.
Can you tell me a little more about the history of the ST-80 class library
and language? That's one of the two questions I asked Ted Kaehler (along
with "Is the original tape with the test ST-80 images still available?") but
he hasn't answered my e-mail yet.
I specifically want to know how the class library and language evolved after
the licensing (which is about when the Xerox features of Squeak were frozen)
and before the language went commercial. The Purple Book and _Inside
Smalltalk_ mention some features that aren't in Squeak (the simulation
classes, multiple inheritance, and temporary variables inside blocks) but I
was looking for a more detailed list with dates. My ultimate goal would be
to put those features back into Squeak.
Have you ever used any of the Xerox workstations? That's something I always
wanted to try.
-- Derek