Fanciful Magic

The S word

Ok, one more thing I noticed as I read through my blogs, the S word. I use it and talk about it a lot. I find very strongly about the S word and it's almost a religious word with me. But, I realized that some people reading my blog might think that I'm single-minded and do not look at other ways of doing things. This is not true. I'm constantly looking for a language and environment that is better than the S word. I think Lisp could have such an environment and language, but the environments I have at my disposal (Corman Lisp, GNU CLISP) are not what I have been accostumed to. But, it's still fun to play with. I also have a lot of fun with Ruby (which I think is simply Smalltalk with less foreign interface), but again while it has an environment that provides immediate feedback. There is something lacking in any environment I have played with (namely FreeRide). I think the environment is very important and I think Eclipse has made my Java programming a hell of a lot more enjoyable. But, there's nothing like changing code while debugging, inspecting object graphically, running code snippets from anywhere, etc. I have heard Dylan has a cool environment, but I haven't had time to really dig down into it. The purpose of this message is I don't anyone to get the wrong impression that I'm single minded. I'm just in love with the S word and I want to spread the word. Currently, I'm going to learn Prolog is the next language I want to learn badly. It's a different way of thinking and that's always good. I know LISP has forever changed the way I think about code as has the S word. I hope Prolog does the same. So, don't expect me to use less of the S word (which by the way is SMALLTALK), but don't be surprised when I start talking about other things as well. I want to make the perfect language eventually. It will obviously be heavily influenced by Smalltalk of course. Hell, with the meta-class model, there might be no reason to make a new language, but just enhance an old favorite...=) We'll have to see on this wonderful journey....Now, if I can find some time....=) I also want to do my JXTA port! I'm a man with too many projects....=)