Talk:F-Script (programming language)

NPOV?

This sentence is marketing-speak, needs to be reworded. "F-Script is tagged as Cocoa developer's best friend, wherein the package provides an integrated set of tools that makes it possible to interactively explore and manipulate Cocoa objects as well as script them using new high-level programming techniques". -- Resuna (talk) 11:23, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Since there were no comments in the past several months I edited it down. -- Resuna (talk) 21:21, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

interactively

The term 'interactively' is extremely misleading here - even if compared to morphic in Squeak Smalltalk.

Having Smalltalk syntax does not make something 'interactive' - the Io language has Smalltalk syntax but is no more 'interactive' than Python ( or Ruby, for that matter.)

Do they only mean 'with access to' ? Or maybe simply 'able to query unimpeded' ?

Take the demo's of F-Script on YouTube: the language designer himself keeps saying 'interactive' but his only 'interaction' with an object is on the commandline of his shell by typing the name of the variable.

Perhaps the F-Script developers now have code blocks attached to "live" objects and now "interact" with those objects as do the users of, say, a scripted game on the iPad OSX itself ??

G. Robert Shiplett 23:07, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Like Smalltalk; unlike Smalltalk

A Scripting language with a syntax "like" that of Smalltalk is not "like Smalltalk". This is utterly misleading. The next line says "Unlike Smalltalk" - but only a non-Smalltalk developer - a journalist or academic lecturer - would venture to make such otiose comparisons.

Is there no other scripting for Cocoa/OSX with which to say 'like' and 'unlike' so we are comparing apples-to-apples ?

A language with Java syntax where Java is truly irrelevant is JavaScript. Comparisons to Java in a WP article would unhelpful to someone uninformed about JavaScript AND Java.

Could a programmer really believe that what he is building is "like" building an application in Smalltalk? Nonsense. Balderdash. Or worse, if deliberately misleading the reader.

In contrast, the several mentions of Smalltalk in our wp article on Objective-C are meaningful and informative. In contrast, every mention of Smalltalk in this article could be replaced by 'Objective-C' with no loss of information - whether on message passing, block notation or the assignment operator. Using the Smalltalk notation to script on top of Objective-C does not make a 'language' LIKE Smalltalk except in the most misleading sense of superficial similarity - adopted deliberately for the "cachet" of the classic language, I suspect. More cynical than "homage", on my reading - and utterly misleading to programmers who have never worked in non-compiled interactive Smalltalk programming environments ( the environment IS the language, silly! ) ( in the case of Smalltalk, uniquely so.)

Compare the TclIDE built in imitation of Squeak Smalltalk: it does not make Tcl/Tk "like" and "unlike" Smalltalk anymore than Tcl/Tk was before that innovation - except in a trivial sense.

In a comparable sense, that Microsoft wrote their QuickPascal IDE in QuickPascal did not somehow make that OOP effort "like" Smalltalk in any sense other than a salesman or journalist might use to hype a product.

F-Script is undoubtedly marvelous and that has nothing to do with being more "Like" Smalltalk than is, say, Objective-C. Strongtalk is more "like" Smalltalk than is Self - on certain dimensions.

Could you say that F-Script is more "like" Ruby than it is "like" Io ? The latter is JavaScript with Smalltalk syntax (in a sense) but is NOTHING like Smalltalk in daily programming use, in refactoring, in testing - and especially not in introducing a novice programmer. "Like" and "unlike" should be on meaningful dimensions. Matz being inspired by Smalltalk syntax does not make Ruby "like" Smalltalk in daily use - and that is what scripting is mostly for - daily use. Entire industrial mission-critical applications in telecom and banking have been in Smalltalk for years - but will one ever be in F-Script ? Is this because of any consideration in these statements in the article as to "like" and "unlike" ? Not at all. Not one iota.

G. Robert Shiplett 23:14, 9 March 2012 (UTC)