Where on the web can you run Smalltalk right now? Where is the Heroku/Rails for Squeak?
And before you write it, I'll save you the time. Here's the typical HN response to this question:
Just go get an EC2 instance and apt-get a bunch of shit and
then figure out how to use a CLI to push your code there and
add framework dependencies and learn Postgres and and configure it
for DNS and oh and you probably need a credit card. Not that
hard, srsly guys. Also, Dropbox is just git with a shiny frontend.
There is an unfathomably monumental difference between not being able to do something at all, and doing it in a way that is constricted and limited from the perspective of an expert. It's the most dramatic in terms of learning, exploration, experimentation, and imagination.
Lego Mindstorms was proprietary and I loved the shit out of that-- probably was the primary reason I dove into science and engineering. And to your point, everything I built with Lego was (literally) locked into the Lego world. But by the time it actually mattered, I had moved to a legit machine shop. But those plastic blocks laid the foundation for construction. That's what I really want Alan Kay's work to do: lay a new foundation for teaching people how to think about computation and symbolic manipulation with computers.
And before you write it, I'll save you the time. Here's the typical HN response to this question:
There is an unfathomably monumental difference between not being able to do something at all, and doing it in a way that is constricted and limited from the perspective of an expert. It's the most dramatic in terms of learning, exploration, experimentation, and imagination.Lego Mindstorms was proprietary and I loved the shit out of that-- probably was the primary reason I dove into science and engineering. And to your point, everything I built with Lego was (literally) locked into the Lego world. But by the time it actually mattered, I had moved to a legit machine shop. But those plastic blocks laid the foundation for construction. That's what I really want Alan Kay's work to do: lay a new foundation for teaching people how to think about computation and symbolic manipulation with computers.