Slashdot Mirror
Can Learning Smalltalk Make You A Better Programmer?
Slashdot reader horrido shares an article that "has done more for Smalltalk advocacy than any other article in memory." It was the second-most popular article of the year on the Hewlett Packard Enterprise site TechBeacon (recently passing 20,000 views), with Richard Eng, the founder of the nonprofit Smalltalk Renaissance, arguing that the 44-year-old language is much more than a tool for teachers -- and not just because Amber Smalltalk transpiles to JavaScript for front-end web programming.
It's a superlative prototyping language for startups. It's an industrial-strength enterprise language used by businesses both big and small all around the globe... Smalltalk's implementation of the object-oriented paradigm is so excellent that it has influenced an entire generation of OO languages, such as Objective-C, Python, Ruby, CLOS, PHP 5, Perl 6, Erlang, Groovy, Scala, Dart, Swift, and so on. By learning Smalltalk, you'll understand how all of those useful features in today's OO languages came to be.
The article also argues that Smalltalk pioneered just-in-time compilation and virtual machines, the model-view-controller design paradigm, and to a large extent, even test-driven development. But most importantly, Smalltalk's reliance on domain-specific languages makes it "the 'purest' OO, and one of the earliest... It is often said that programming in Smalltalk or Python is rather like Zen; your mind just flows effortlessly with the task. This is the beauty and value of language simplicity, and Smalltalk has this in spades... Smalltalk, by virtue of its object purity and consistency, will give you a profoundly better understanding of object-oriented programming and how to use it to its best effect."
The article also argues that Smalltalk pioneered just-in-time compilation and virtual machines, the model-view-controller design paradigm, and to a large extent, even test-driven development. But most importantly, Smalltalk's reliance on domain-specific languages makes it "the 'purest' OO, and one of the earliest... It is often said that programming in Smalltalk or Python is rather like Zen; your mind just flows effortlessly with the task. This is the beauty and value of language simplicity, and Smalltalk has this in spades... Smalltalk, by virtue of its object purity and consistency, will give you a profoundly better understanding of object-oriented programming and how to use it to its best effect."
I was surprised, maybe shocked, by how much Smalltalk has contributed to the world[1], how far we have deviated from it[2], and how slowly we are converging to it again[3].
[1] object oriented programming, virtual machine, just-in-time compilation, test-driven development, Model-View-Controller design pattern, object databases
[2] inventing problems by trying to coerce static typed programming languages to behave like dynamic ones (Java, Go, et cetera, I'm looking at you)
[3] by slowly incorporating Smalltalk features into current popular programming languages. Ruby for instance is heavily based on Smalltalk.
The best way to predict the future is to invent it
While Smalltalk clearly has plenty of influences in later languages, from everything I've ever heard or read, the language to learn is LISP--not Smalltalk. I've heard countless stories of people saying it retrains your brain and opens your eyes to new ways of solving problems and that "It's the best language to learn that you'll never actually use." (Because it helps in your normal life.)
It's like learning Latin in school, to help you appreciate English.
I started off with Turbo Pascal 3-4 back in the 80's (had OO before anything else back then) then moved to Smalltalk. It was a true mindfuck at first, wasn't able to do the simplest of tasks. Where are the files? How do I get a library for X? !@#$ But eventually the fog lifted and I got productive. It was still hard to explain its virtues to everyone else and deployments were a challenge (VM? what?) but then Java came along and I moved to that in 97. Most of my contemporaries doing the same were coming from C/C++ and their experiences adapting to that were hilarious compared to what I was experiencing. In short I was the quitessential nickel-get-yourself-a-new language neckbeard, disgusted with the compromises made to entice the C community: lame syntax, files, primitive types, overstrong types, etc. Still bringing home the bacon with Java but its been painful having to watch the industry reinvent all the same core concepts over the last 20 years. Its not surprising that the GoF came from the Smalltalk community, the language effectively voids all the useless baggage that comes with other languages, forcing you to confront and identify all the core concepts in your problem domain.
One of the most interesting things I've been seeing is being able to identify the mental origins of developers who've drunk the Smalltalk Kool-Aid so long ago, it shows up clearly in their designs. All domain concepts as first class objects, no data-only structs, effective pattern use, quality name choices, tight and effective hierarchies but most of all semantic clarity. You can only beat junior devs on the head for so long in code reviews to have them put these things into practice before you realize that they're coming from a wholly different perspective. As we move into a post-OO world with functional programming I can imagine the Haskel et al folks gritting their teeth in the same manner.
Learning *ANY* programming language can make someone a better programmer... offer them a new way of looking at how to solve certain types of problems and innovate new and elegant solutions that hadn't occurred to them previously as they learn the idioms of a new programming language.
But like any other programming language, learning it will *NOT* necessarily make you a better programmer, and there's certainly not anything unique to Smalltalk that might make becoming a better programmer after learning it especially likely.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Its too bad the money men at Xerox at the time (who mostly came from places like Ford and didn't know the first thing about computers or technology) didn't realize just what they had with the Alto, Ethernet, Laser Printer, Smalltalk etc and actually allow the PARC guys to get it out of the lab and into the real world much earlier than they eventually did...
Though I came to Smalltalk after C++, there is no doubt it informs why all things OO are the way they are. However, who has the time to attain this insight? I programmed in C for three years before learning C++ in the early '90s and there is no doubt that my knowledge of C makes many design decisions behind C++ clear (e.g., how many "young" C++ programmers actually know why the designers of C++ foisted the Rule of three onto the language). But I was too busy keeping up with endlessly changing technologies to learn, say, BCPL, to better understand the design decisions behind C.
Run forward, nascent programmers! Your knowledge of (choose your modern language) today will inform the design behind the language you learn ten years from now.