This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by James Robertson. Original Post: They don't get it Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rssBlogView.xml Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by James Robertson Latest Posts From Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants

This is just priceless. Take a look at Panopticon's comments on Boo, a new language for the .NET platform. Here's the short definition of Boo:

Boo is a new object oriented statically typed programming language for the Common Language Infrastructure with a python inspired syntax and a special focus on language and compiler extensibility.

Panopticon points to Don Box, who says "I wanted a language I could extend with my own constructs." Of course, Don could have had that years ago by looking at Smalltalk. or Lisp. But hey, progress is progress - at least he's moving in the right direction. Now look at what Panopticon thinks:

This is one of those ideas that's always seemed to me to be great on the face of it but questionable because of the law of unintended consequences. On the one hand, how can you argue with giving people the ability to extend the language as they see fit, especially given the fact that compiler releases can be a year or more? On the other hand, it's so easy to screw up language design even when you've been doing it a long time that I wonder if you won't quickly have a language that's no longer comprehensible by man or machine.

In a nutshell, that's the way a lot of people look at dynamic languages - it's the software version of what about the children? that you often see in politics. Don't give those darn developers sharp tools - by golly all they'll do is hurt themselves. Better to strangle productivity than risk that!