Like many hackers, my first real programming language love was Lisp. Paul Graham, who inspired my own explorations of the language, is a particular advocate and has written quite a bit about Lisp and what makes it different from other programming languages. So what does make Lisp different? Why does Lisp continue to be one of the most powerful, flexible, and concise programming languages in existence, despite the fact that it was invented in 1958–making it the second-oldest high-level programming language in the world? Continue reading
Tag Archives: smalltalk
We Have A New Puppy!
This Monday, July 7th, my fiance and I went to the airport and picked up this little guy:
His name is Beetle and he is adorable. Normally I think pugs are hideous (it was her idea), but Beetle is the sole exception. Obviously. Continue reading
Filed under Diary, Just for Fun, Programming
Amber Smalltalk
How come nobody told me about this before? Amber Smalltalk is a dialect of the Smalltalk programming language, which is what caught my attention. I have been a fan of Smalltalk for years, but the image-based development environment proved a little too cumbersome and monolithic for my tastes. Amber to the rescue!
Amber is a Smalltalk language for web development. Now, as I understand it, there is already an excellent Smalltalk-based environment for web development called Seaside. However, what sets Amber apart from other Smalltalk variants for the web is that it is client-based, and compiles directly to JavaScript. This means, among other things, that you can go try Amber out right now using nothing but your browser! It’s the perfect “gateway drug” for the wider Smalltalk world! I find this especially appealing because it means I won’t have to learn JavaScript to do portable, client-based web programming! Hurray!
After my initial “project” (modifying the “counter” example to count only by primes), I’ve started working on a web-based game. It won’t be the much-anticipated port of my game “Press A to Win” (my apologies to both of you who were hoping it would be), instead it will be a game about numbers! A game about finding numbers’ unique prime factorizations, specifically. What? Why are you looking at me like that? Of course it’ll be fun!
Anyway, you should go check Amber out. It’s great. I’ll have something more for you to look at next week. Until then, stay curious!
Filed under Diary, Programming
In Search of Secrets 