Mmm yeah. The exploration, instant feedback and minimalist syntax are features that I wish more people would value.
I "secretly" think that Self would have achieved that too (and even better because is not constrained to the artificial abstraction of classes) but it never had a chance due to its unsuccessful IDE.
Our cognitive system converges too much to objectify things to ignore. We compulsively do that. There is something about objects that fits our cognitive system better. It's a waste if we don't take full advantage of it.
LISP machines, Solo, Edison, Oberon... quite a few systems and languages had that capability if the users and/or developers so desired. In the write-up he gave me, Kay seemed to suggest it had a unique combination of OOP support, conceptual brevity, and especially the late binding. I mean, good performance and stuff too. Those other things were considered key advantages over other systems I named.
Maybe also easier to match to hardware than LISP or FP DSL's along lines of Haskell. I'm a little out of my depth there, though. I just remember LISP machine and OS crowd having to innovate hard to fight performance issues. PreScheme & T being exceptions where low-level was easy.
I "secretly" think that Self would have achieved that too (and even better because is not constrained to the artificial abstraction of classes) but it never had a chance due to its unsuccessful IDE.
Our cognitive system converges too much to objectify things to ignore. We compulsively do that. There is something about objects that fits our cognitive system better. It's a waste if we don't take full advantage of it.