See also Personal Dynamic Media
Design Principles Behind Smalltalk. Daniel H. H. Ingalls. Learning Research Group. Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. BYTE Magazine, August 1981
quotes
Our work has followed a two- to four-year cycle that can be seen to parallel the scientific method:
Build an application program within the current system (make an observation)
Based on that experience, redesign the language (formulate a theory)
Build a new system based on the new design (make a prediction that can be tested)
The Smalltalk-80 system marks our fifth time through this cycle. I'll start with a principle that is more social than technical and that is largely responsible for the particular bias of the Smalltalk project:
Personal Mastery: If a system is to serve the creative spirit, it must be entirely comprehensible to a single individual.
The article goes on to mention a dozen more principles that were equally unexpected by the Byte Magazine hobbyist readership. Personal mastery is the perfect companion to the personal computer which completes a vision that Byte documented.
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