I recieved my copy of the Mac OS X Public Beta today, as well as the develement tools. (I'm a member of the ADC)
According to Apple, the dev tools (gcc/g++, InterfaceBuilder, ProjectBuilder and a bunch of little apps) will be available for free on-line. It will require a free registration. I believe sometime in October, but don't quote me on that.
The iPaq is way to pricey for me too. Check out the Helio, which goes for $150, and runs Linux. A much more accessible device for a Linux PDA than the iPaq. And yes, it's actually shipping.
That was my original intent in the submission, not so much why the business world hasn't adopted Smalltalk, but why the hobbist/open source crowd has not. It didn't come across clearly.
For me, I don't care too much about the world of business. If the hobbists care about it, the business world will catch on eventually. I'm just awed when people rave about how great Java, and now C# are, bringing true innovation to the world of programming, making all of out lives as coders easier, when almost all of these ideas come from a language over 20 years old*!
It's key that open source peeps pick up on the true beauty and power of Smalltalk. So many fellow hackers are so entrenched in the world of C and Perl, that things like Python can woo them to know end.;) I'd just like them all to see what's even beyond Python.
No, Smalltalk isn't for everyone, whether you be businessman or coder. Some people just like C and Perl (why- it's beyond me), but there are those who are looking for a better way that just haven't been exposed to Smalltalk, and other great languages.
* Research on Smalltalk began around 1970, the first version being Smalltalk-72.
You've claimed to have used Smalltalk- can you elaborate one what's wrong with the IDE? Is it that it's different than the write-compile-run cycle of traditional languages? Most of those who have actually used Smalltalk believe it's IDE to be one of the best, perhaps only rivaled by those found on LISP machines.
There's also a port (albeit an incredibly slow moving one) to the Linux fb, with the intent of running it on Linux PDAs (I'm targeting the Helio and Agenda).
VW is quite a bit faster than Squeak and runs on all the platforms that matter (various Unices, Mac OS, Windows), but Squeak runs on more. Show me that port of VW which runs on bare metal, or on Acorn RiscOS and I'll shut up.:)
Squeak is just as portable. In fact, last year, while I was learning Smalltalk, I would work on the exact same image file at home on my Mac OS/PPC and Linux/x86 boxes, and during slowtimes at work, Windows/x86.
VW is cool, but for what I'm doing, Squeak's got some definately lovable features that you don't find in VW or other commercial environments (IMHO).
I have to agree with you on that one... Smalltalk has the best dev environment I've ever seen. While I use Squeak myself, I interned at a place which used VisualAge, and would say that I liked it more in some respects, and I would guess that the other commercial implementations have a dev env better than Squeak. Which says a lot about Smalltalk.
As you add stuff to your application you get a bigger and bigger image.
Only when someone doesn't manage their image correctly. In the same way, you can have piles and piles of obsolete.pl,.C,.c, or.java files in your working directory. Many big shops use Envy, which manages applications well. When you're ready to deploy an app, just start with a clean image, file in what you need, and the packager will take out what you don't.
The next problem was GUI. The GUI was 100% let's do it my way.
While that was the case for the original Smalltalk-80, as well as Squeak, it's not the case for VisualAge for Smalltalk, Dolphin Smalltalk, and Smalltalk MT which all use native widgets. There's also VisualWorks, which tries to emulate a look and feel.
Forsaking the hacker via cost is probably the single most killer and stagnation of a tool.
I agree. Squeak and GNU Smalltalk are both quality systems which have a lot of hackability. Squeak may not be VA with Envy, but neither is Emacs and g++ the same as Visual C++.
It lacks Java's interoperability guaruntees, limiting the ability of end users to choose among multiple 3rd party vendors
There exists (final/draft?) a new ANSI Standard for Smalltalk. Many of the various 3rd party vendors (there is no primary vendor, analogous to Java's Sun) are moving toward ANSI support. There are many suppliers of Smalltalk systems.
It does not define a stable runtime (developers can and generally do modify almost all the fundamentals of the system) making it hard for 3rd party vendors to sell add ons.
Just because it's possible, doesn't mean people do it. Most developers won't touch Core/System (as it came with the initial install), lest they screw everything up. The people that do generally know what they're doing, and where it makes a difference, and are wise enough to know whether or not to do it. Making your claim irrelevant.
A strong NIH mentality within the Smalltalk community. A good example was your GC argument. In
fact, Smalltalk GC's lagged LISP GC's in much the same way that Java GC's have lagged Smalltalk.
Are you saying that it is your response to reject Smalltalk over Java, even though Smalltalk may have a more mature GC, simply because some LISP dialects may have a better GC?
Actually, according to some discussions on comp.lang.smalltalk a few weeks ago, the next version of VisualAge for Java is done at least partly in Java, rather than in Smalltalk. We'll see how that turns out.
One doesn't have to do huge UML diagrams to write OO code. I've done small Smalltalk (and Python) projects using just 2 or 3 classes. And to the way I think, it was a lot easier than writting functions to do it. While full-blown OO analysis and design may be overkill for a lot of small projects, OO programming is not.
Smalltalk has a strong tradition of being cross platform. The most notable example is Squeak which runs on almost every platform out there. Most importantly, most of the big Unices (including Linux), Mac OS, and Windows. With binary compatibility. C as a portable assembler is a myth, and C code needs to be written with portability in mind.
Both IBM's VisualAge for Smalltalk and Java were written in Smalltalk. As much as people wanted to believe that Java was a mature programming language, it wasn't mature enough to write an IDE in.
While I've never used VA for Java, I've never had any problems with the Smalltalk version. Was fast and responsive enough to write the huge app where I interned this summer which was responsible for defining products and generating C, C++, COBOL, and XML code...
Ben's right. One's pituitary gland also makes some crazy tryptamines... I'd much rather have be able to turn on and off endorphines and 5-MeO-DMT whenever I wanted. Sure as hell would beat being sick from caffeine all the time.
While GNUstep has been more or less keeping up with the changes to the OpenStep API made in Cocoa, there are going to be issues, and a porting from Cocoa to GNUstep while be more than a re-compile. Not a major pain in the arse, methinks, but not a 10 minute just-run-make jobbie. For one, the GNUstep Distributed Object classes (NSConnection and friends) do not follow the same protocol (the methods) as the Cocoa version. I'm sure there are other differences, but as Cocoa is totally finalized, they might catch up.
Mac OS X uses Display PDF now, not Display PostScript. This actually also might effect the porting of applications between GNUstep, Cocoa, and OpenStep. With GNUstep and OpenStep, you can put straight-up PostScript code in your app- Cocoa wouldn't know what to do with this. This isn't a big problem, though.
It is also a beautiful interface, now, from the eyecandy point of view. They've taken the Step interface (see Windowmaker and Afterstep) and combined it with the good ol' Mac menubar. That bar at the bottom... it's the Dock.
What are you talking about on this one? While Mac OS X does resemble the OpenStep UI in some ways, in the ways that WindowMaker and others implements, it's almost nothing like it (title bar, general look of widgets). I would agree that Aqua is beatutiful, and more importantly, quite functional- but for those of you who want a more classic NeXT interface, check out MacThemes, which has begun to document the Mac OS X theme format.
In my CS I and II classes, programming in C and C++ respectively, we were supposed to be using Borland's C++Builder. I approached my TA, and asked if we were going to be using ANSI C and C++, nothing more, nothing less. I also asked if I could just use gcc/g++ on my own machine. He said we were, and also said that I could use gcc/g++, but that they wouldn't be able to help me necessarily with any problems I would be having getting it to compile. This was for 350-person classes. I knew other people who were also using gcc/g++ on their own and the school's Sun boxes.
But then again, we also were handing in our assignments on paper, which is worse to me (9 assignments in the semester, each and average of 9 pages- a good 24000 pages of homework over the semester, wasted). I had a little email war with the professor over it (he said electronic submission doesn't work- it worked for my highschool in non-computer related classes!), but was stuck with it. The TAs weren't recompiling out programs, but checking places for a correct algorithm and other specs of the assignment. Frankly, I don't know why this made it onto Slashdot- I would guess that for most simple C/C++ assignments (and some not so simple, provided they're using stdin/out), code that compiled on gcc/g++ probably does CodeWarrior too.
I also had to pay for the computer access fee for the course, which is used towards the development machines and software for the class- which I didn't use all year.
What also bugs me is that this coming year we have to use C++. Hell, I even offered to write Motif wrappers for GNU Smalltalk or Squeak so I didn't have to work with such a primitive language. Not surprisingly, the prof wasn't down with that.
Moral of the story? Try to work something out with the TA, deal with using CodeWarrior, or transfer schools. Probably in that order.
My girlfriend, who was a big Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan was looking around a while back a the Gizmonics website and happened upon Joel and his brother Jim's coloring book. One of the pages of the coloring book (page 22) has the caption: 'Production supervisors for "Robot Wars."' By any off chance, is this Comedy Central program these "Robot Wars" that Jim and Joel Hodgson are working on? I missed the show, so I didn't get a chance to check the credits.
Think about the sonystation vs. the MS Xbox. Sony is still paying microsoft for windows while competeing with them in the console space.
Oh, I get it! So you're saying that Microsoft is a monopoly because they compete with their clients? We must have a terrible amount of monopolies hanging around this US of A then. Damn shame. And unamerican.
Why would you want to write any software knowing that if microsoft decides to release something similar they're going to leverage the OS to run you out of business?
Because about 80-90% of computers still run windows.
What OS would you target if you were a company and wanted to sell your software? MS has every right to compete with you that any other company does. All you can do is know (hope) that you have the better product. If that means integrating with Windows is a feature your potential customers want, so be it.
That doesn't mean MS can't do anything illegal to elbow you out. But in many cases, I would guess it's just the smaller time shops (relative to MS) who don't have the resources to compete with MS being jelous. MS may produce crappier products, but they have name recongnition and the cash to market. If you think that's unfair, then it's more a problem with capitalism.
If there was a more viable alternative (large market share) I'm sure many companies would write software for them.
Yup. Good work.
I'm sick of people who believe MS to be a monopoly simply because they don't like the products MS makes. I know I don't- I just don't use them. The question of whether or not MS is a monopoly has to due with unlawful business practices and policies, not how crappy their products are.
Great to hear! Word on the street is that Vtech has been very helpful in helping develoeprs with information about the hardware, but I suppose you've already tried to speak with them. Are you planning on adding microphone support?
I also read yesterday that Apple is also doing a trade in for their Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh- a cool little machine release in'97. I can't find the article, but apparently Apple is not just giving a $700 credit towards a PowerBook like with the 5300c and 190, but are doing a total trade in- apparently for a G4/400. I recall ever hearing about anyone having troubles with these machines, but then again, they're fairly rare. Pretty good deal for TAM owners, if you ask me. Buy then again, they're pretty neet.
I apologize for my obvious semantic mistake. In context of environmentalism, I wasn't talking about warring, making of slaves, &c, but resource imperialism. That is, to take as much as you can, as often as you can, without any thought or behavior to reflect any sort of concern that our resources our finite. The conquering the natural world. Which is a backasswords thing, as we are a part of the natural world, but it seems to be what we are, and have been trying to do.
Please do give us a report of what the PocketLinux distro was like on your Helio. If you don't post it here, please email me.
Do you know if PocketLinux has power management, and the app launcher like the iPAQ version of PocketLinux? I tried out the vhl-tools version of Linux, and it was pretty rough- to be expected, but pretty cool nonetheless.
What gives is that your Visor Deluxe has a paltry 16 MHz DragonBall EZ processor, with no semblence of a MMU. uClinux would run on your Visor, provided it had a reflashable ROM (I've no idea if it does or not), and someone thought it to be worthwhile enough to get it running on it.
The VTech Helio, however, has a 75 MHz processor in addition to flashable ROM, making it a worthwhile platform for a PDA version of Linux. And unlike uClinux, the version of Linux which runs on the "crappy" Helio is full-blown Linux 2.4.0, as opposed to a stripped down version of 2.0.36.
Now, what PDA hardware did you say was crappy again?:)
Again, I'd like to direct you to my orginal post, in which I stated that i was including the parts related to the global warming and the sea. The document had a much wider scope than climatology.
Does that means such practices should be continued to performed on a larger scale by a larget set of peple, like we have today? I doubt that you would believe that to be a good thing. The Native American tribes which practiced these on a much smaller scale, keeping it in check. Ecosystems can sustain, come back from, and even profit from a certain amount of destruction. As practiced by the Native Americans, it seems that it was under that threshold. As we are beginning to see the global effects of our actions, how can we go on arrogantly assuming that we can keep doing it, on an increasingly larger and larger scale?
Yes, the term Native Americans is, well, cheezy. I wouldn't say arrogant though. There are no other words which would fit. Indians? Well, what do you call the peoples from India? Tribes may have names, but I'm sure that every Native American wouldn't want to be lumped into the Anishinaabe.
Slashdot Mirror
I recieved my copy of the Mac OS X Public Beta today, as well as the develement tools. (I'm a member of the ADC)
According to Apple, the dev tools (gcc/g++, InterfaceBuilder, ProjectBuilder and a bunch of little apps) will be available for free on-line. It will require a free registration. I believe sometime in October, but don't quote me on that.
The iPaq is way to pricey for me too. Check out the Helio, which goes for $150, and runs Linux. A much more accessible device for a Linux PDA than the iPaq. And yes, it's actually shipping.
That was my original intent in the submission, not so much why the business world hasn't adopted Smalltalk, but why the hobbist/open source crowd has not. It didn't come across clearly.
;) I'd just like them all to see what's even beyond Python.
For me, I don't care too much about the world of business. If the hobbists care about it, the business world will catch on eventually. I'm just awed when people rave about how great Java, and now C# are, bringing true innovation to the world of programming, making all of out lives as coders easier, when almost all of these ideas come from a language over 20 years old*!
It's key that open source peeps pick up on the true beauty and power of Smalltalk. So many fellow hackers are so entrenched in the world of C and Perl, that things like Python can woo them to know end.
No, Smalltalk isn't for everyone, whether you be businessman or coder. Some people just like C and Perl (why- it's beyond me), but there are those who are looking for a better way that just haven't been exposed to Smalltalk, and other great languages.
* Research on Smalltalk began around 1970, the first version being Smalltalk-72.
You've claimed to have used Smalltalk- can you elaborate one what's wrong with the IDE? Is it that it's different than the write-compile-run cycle of traditional languages? Most of those who have actually used Smalltalk believe it's IDE to be one of the best, perhaps only rivaled by those found on LISP machines.
There's also a port (albeit an incredibly slow moving one) to the Linux fb, with the intent of running it on Linux PDAs (I'm targeting the Helio and Agenda).
VW is quite a bit faster than Squeak and runs on all the platforms that matter (various Unices, Mac OS, Windows), but Squeak runs on more. Show me that port of VW which runs on bare metal, or on Acorn RiscOS and I'll shut up. :)
Squeak is just as portable. In fact, last year, while I was learning Smalltalk, I would work on the exact same image file at home on my Mac OS/PPC and Linux/x86 boxes, and during slowtimes at work, Windows/x86.
VW is cool, but for what I'm doing, Squeak's got some definately lovable features that you don't find in VW or other commercial environments (IMHO).
I have to agree with you on that one... Smalltalk has the best dev environment I've ever seen. While I use Squeak myself, I interned at a place which used VisualAge, and would say that I liked it more in some respects, and I would guess that the other commercial implementations have a dev env better than Squeak. Which says a lot about Smalltalk.
As you add stuff to your application you get a bigger and bigger image.
.pl, .C, .c, or .java files in your working directory. Many big shops use Envy, which manages applications well. When you're ready to deploy an app, just start with a clean image, file in what you need, and the packager will take out what you don't.
Only when someone doesn't manage their image correctly. In the same way, you can have piles and piles of obsolete
The next problem was GUI. The GUI was 100% let's do it my way.
While that was the case for the original Smalltalk-80, as well as Squeak, it's not the case for VisualAge for Smalltalk, Dolphin Smalltalk, and Smalltalk MT which all use native widgets. There's also VisualWorks, which tries to emulate a look and feel.
Forsaking the hacker via cost is probably the single most killer and stagnation of a tool.
I agree. Squeak and GNU Smalltalk are both quality systems which have a lot of hackability. Squeak may not be VA with Envy, but neither is Emacs and g++ the same as Visual C++.
It lacks Java's interoperability guaruntees, limiting the ability of end users to choose among multiple 3rd party vendors
There exists (final/draft?) a new ANSI Standard for Smalltalk. Many of the various 3rd party vendors (there is no primary vendor, analogous to Java's Sun) are moving toward ANSI support. There are many suppliers of Smalltalk systems.
It does not define a stable runtime (developers can and generally do modify almost all the fundamentals of the system) making it hard for 3rd party vendors to sell add ons.
Just because it's possible, doesn't mean people do it. Most developers won't touch Core/System (as it came with the initial install), lest they screw everything up. The people that do generally know what they're doing, and where it makes a difference, and are wise enough to know whether or not to do it. Making your claim irrelevant.
A strong NIH mentality within the Smalltalk community. A good example was your GC argument. In fact, Smalltalk GC's lagged LISP GC's in much the same way that Java GC's have lagged Smalltalk.
Are you saying that it is your response to reject Smalltalk over Java, even though Smalltalk may have a more mature GC, simply because some LISP dialects may have a better GC?
It's not terrible hard to find- it's right here.
Actually, according to some discussions on comp.lang.smalltalk a few weeks ago, the next version of VisualAge for Java is done at least partly in Java, rather than in Smalltalk. We'll see how that turns out.
One doesn't have to do huge UML diagrams to write OO code. I've done small Smalltalk (and Python) projects using just 2 or 3 classes. And to the way I think, it was a lot easier than writting functions to do it. While full-blown OO analysis and design may be overkill for a lot of small projects, OO programming is not.
Smalltalk has a strong tradition of being cross platform. The most notable example is Squeak which runs on almost every platform out there. Most importantly, most of the big Unices (including Linux), Mac OS, and Windows. With binary compatibility. C as a portable assembler is a myth, and C code needs to be written with portability in mind.
Both IBM's VisualAge for Smalltalk and Java were written in Smalltalk. As much as people wanted to believe that Java was a mature programming language, it wasn't mature enough to write an IDE in.
While I've never used VA for Java, I've never had any problems with the Smalltalk version. Was fast and responsive enough to write the huge app where I interned this summer which was responsible for defining products and generating C, C++, COBOL, and XML code...
Ben's right. One's pituitary gland also makes some crazy tryptamines... I'd much rather have be able to turn on and off endorphines and 5-MeO-DMT whenever I wanted. Sure as hell would beat being sick from caffeine all the time.
While GNUstep has been more or less keeping up with the changes to the OpenStep API made in Cocoa, there are going to be issues, and a porting from Cocoa to GNUstep while be more than a re-compile. Not a major pain in the arse, methinks, but not a 10 minute just-run-make jobbie. For one, the GNUstep Distributed Object classes (NSConnection and friends) do not follow the same protocol (the methods) as the Cocoa version. I'm sure there are other differences, but as Cocoa is totally finalized, they might catch up.
Mac OS X uses Display PDF now, not Display PostScript. This actually also might effect the porting of applications between GNUstep, Cocoa, and OpenStep. With GNUstep and OpenStep, you can put straight-up PostScript code in your app- Cocoa wouldn't know what to do with this. This isn't a big problem, though.
It is also a beautiful interface, now, from the eyecandy point of view. They've taken the Step interface (see Windowmaker and Afterstep) and combined it with the good ol' Mac menubar. That bar at the bottom... it's the Dock.
What are you talking about on this one? While Mac OS X does resemble the OpenStep UI in some ways, in the ways that WindowMaker and others implements, it's almost nothing like it (title bar, general look of widgets). I would agree that Aqua is beatutiful, and more importantly, quite functional- but for those of you who want a more classic NeXT interface, check out MacThemes, which has begun to document the Mac OS X theme format.
In my CS I and II classes, programming in C and C++ respectively, we were supposed to be using Borland's C++Builder. I approached my TA, and asked if we were going to be using ANSI C and C++, nothing more, nothing less. I also asked if I could just use gcc/g++ on my own machine. He said we were, and also said that I could use gcc/g++, but that they wouldn't be able to help me necessarily with any problems I would be having getting it to compile. This was for 350-person classes. I knew other people who were also using gcc/g++ on their own and the school's Sun boxes.
But then again, we also were handing in our assignments on paper, which is worse to me (9 assignments in the semester, each and average of 9 pages- a good 24000 pages of homework over the semester, wasted). I had a little email war with the professor over it (he said electronic submission doesn't work- it worked for my highschool in non-computer related classes!), but was stuck with it. The TAs weren't recompiling out programs, but checking places for a correct algorithm and other specs of the assignment. Frankly, I don't know why this made it onto Slashdot- I would guess that for most simple C/C++ assignments (and some not so simple, provided they're using stdin/out), code that compiled on gcc/g++ probably does CodeWarrior too.
I also had to pay for the computer access fee for the course, which is used towards the development machines and software for the class- which I didn't use all year.
What also bugs me is that this coming year we have to use C++. Hell, I even offered to write Motif wrappers for GNU Smalltalk or Squeak so I didn't have to work with such a primitive language. Not surprisingly, the prof wasn't down with that.
Moral of the story? Try to work something out with the TA, deal with using CodeWarrior, or transfer schools. Probably in that order.
My girlfriend, who was a big Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan was looking around a while back a the Gizmonics website and happened upon Joel and his brother Jim's coloring book. One of the pages of the coloring book (page 22) has the caption: 'Production supervisors for "Robot Wars."' By any off chance, is this Comedy Central program these "Robot Wars" that Jim and Joel Hodgson are working on? I missed the show, so I didn't get a chance to check the credits.
Think about the sonystation vs. the MS Xbox. Sony is still paying microsoft for windows while competeing with them in the console space. Oh, I get it! So you're saying that Microsoft is a monopoly because they compete with their clients? We must have a terrible amount of monopolies hanging around this US of A then. Damn shame. And unamerican. Why would you want to write any software knowing that if microsoft decides to release something similar they're going to leverage the OS to run you out of business? Because about 80-90% of computers still run windows. What OS would you target if you were a company and wanted to sell your software? MS has every right to compete with you that any other company does. All you can do is know (hope) that you have the better product. If that means integrating with Windows is a feature your potential customers want, so be it. That doesn't mean MS can't do anything illegal to elbow you out. But in many cases, I would guess it's just the smaller time shops (relative to MS) who don't have the resources to compete with MS being jelous. MS may produce crappier products, but they have name recongnition and the cash to market. If you think that's unfair, then it's more a problem with capitalism. If there was a more viable alternative (large market share) I'm sure many companies would write software for them. Yup. Good work. I'm sick of people who believe MS to be a monopoly simply because they don't like the products MS makes. I know I don't- I just don't use them. The question of whether or not MS is a monopoly has to due with unlawful business practices and policies, not how crappy their products are.
Great to hear! Word on the street is that Vtech has been very helpful in helping develoeprs with information about the hardware, but I suppose you've already tried to speak with them. Are you planning on adding microphone support?
I also read yesterday that Apple is also doing a trade in for their Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh- a cool little machine release in'97. I can't find the article, but apparently Apple is not just giving a $700 credit towards a PowerBook like with the 5300c and 190, but are doing a total trade in- apparently for a G4/400. I recall ever hearing about anyone having troubles with these machines, but then again, they're fairly rare. Pretty good deal for TAM owners, if you ask me. Buy then again, they're pretty neet.
I apologize for my obvious semantic mistake. In context of environmentalism, I wasn't talking about warring, making of slaves, &c, but resource imperialism. That is, to take as much as you can, as often as you can, without any thought or behavior to reflect any sort of concern that our resources our finite. The conquering the natural world. Which is a backasswords thing, as we are a part of the natural world, but it seems to be what we are, and have been trying to do.
Please do give us a report of what the PocketLinux distro was like on your Helio. If you don't post it here, please email me.
Do you know if PocketLinux has power management, and the app launcher like the iPAQ version of PocketLinux? I tried out the vhl-tools version of Linux, and it was pretty rough- to be expected, but pretty cool nonetheless.
What gives is that your Visor Deluxe has a paltry 16 MHz DragonBall EZ processor, with no semblence of a MMU. uClinux would run on your Visor, provided it had a reflashable ROM (I've no idea if it does or not), and someone thought it to be worthwhile enough to get it running on it.
:)
The VTech Helio, however, has a 75 MHz processor in addition to flashable ROM, making it a worthwhile platform for a PDA version of Linux. And unlike uClinux, the version of Linux which runs on the "crappy" Helio is full-blown Linux 2.4.0, as opposed to a stripped down version of 2.0.36.
Now, what PDA hardware did you say was crappy again?
Again, I'd like to direct you to my orginal post, in which I stated that i was including the parts related to the global warming and the sea. The document had a much wider scope than climatology.
Does that means such practices should be continued to performed on a larger scale by a larget set of peple, like we have today? I doubt that you would believe that to be a good thing. The Native American tribes which practiced these on a much smaller scale, keeping it in check. Ecosystems can sustain, come back from, and even profit from a certain amount of destruction. As practiced by the Native Americans, it seems that it was under that threshold. As we are beginning to see the global effects of our actions, how can we go on arrogantly assuming that we can keep doing it, on an increasingly larger and larger scale?
Yes, the term Native Americans is, well, cheezy. I wouldn't say arrogant though. There are no other words which would fit. Indians? Well, what do you call the peoples from India? Tribes may have names, but I'm sure that every Native American wouldn't want to be lumped into the Anishinaabe.