The early history of Smalltalk
The early history of Smalltalk
复制标题
Smalltalk 的早期历史
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
1993
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Alan C. Kay
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Alan C. Kay
大多数想法都来自以前的想法。六十年代，特别是在ARPA社区，通过交互式分时计算机，图形屏幕和指向设备，产生了一系列关于“人机共生”的概念。先进的计算机语言被发明来模拟复杂的系统，如炼油厂和半智能行为。现代个人计算、重叠窗口界面和面向对象设计的范式转变很快就出现了，这是因为人们把60年代的工作看作不仅仅是“更好的老东西”。也就是说，不仅仅是一种更好的方法：进行大型机计算;为最终用户调用功能;使数据结构更加抽象。相反，计算/$/卷的指数增长的承诺要求60年代被视为“几乎是一个新事物”，并找出真正的“新事物”可能是什么。例如，一个人可以用手持的“Dynabook”进行计算，这在共享的大型机上是不可能的;数百万的潜在用户意味着用户界面必须成为沿着蒙台梭利和布鲁纳的路线的学习环境;并且需要大范围，降低复杂性，最后─用户素养将要求数据和控制结构被废除，而有利于一个更生物化的方案，即受保护的通用细胞只通过可以模仿任何期望的信息进行交互，行为
早期的Smalltalk是这些新观点的第一个完整实现，因为它在硬件，语言和用户界面设计方面有许多前辈。它成为新计算的典范，部分原因是因为我们实际上正在尝试信念结构的质的转变-一种与印刷机发明相同的精神的新库恩范式-因此采取了高度极端的立场，几乎迫使这些新风格被发明出来。
Most ideas come from previous ideas. The sixties, particularly in the ARPA community, gave rise to a host of notions about “human-computer symbiosis” through interactive time-shared computers, graphics screens and pointing devices. Advanced computer languages were invented to simulate complex systems such as oil refineries and semi-intelligent behavior. The soon to follow paradigm shift of modern personal computing, overlapping window interfaces, and object-oriented design came from seeing the work of the sixties as something more than a “better old thing”. That is, more than a better way: to do mainframe computing; for end-users to invoke functionality; to make data structures more abstract. Instead the promise of exponential growth in computing/$/volume demanded that the sixties be regarded as “almost a new thing” and to find out what the actual “new things” might be. For example, one would compute with a handheld “Dynabook” in a way that would not be possible on a shared mainframe; millions of potential users meant that the user interface would have to become a learning environment along the lines of Montessori and Bruner; and needs for large scope, reduction in complexity, and end-user literacy would require that data and control structures be done away with in favor of a more biological scheme of protected universal cells interacting only through messages that could mimic any desired behavior.
Early Smalltalk was the first complete realization of these new points of view as parented by its many predecessors in hardware, language and user interface design. It became the exemplar of the new computing, in part, because we were actually trying for a qualitative shift in belief structures—a new Kuhnian paradigm in the same spirit as the invention of the printing press—and thus took highly extreme positions which almost forced these new styles to be invented.