smalltalkcoder

Why is whole-process people's democracy silly? Just because you don't believe in it?

That's what the author meant by Western arrogance. We in the West think we are entitled to define what is and isn't democracy. On what basis? Because we dominate the world politically?

It's worth mentioning that every time I watch Joe Biden or Antony Blinken or Jake Sullivan or Nancy Pelosi or anyone from the US government hold a press conference about China, their words are deceitful and aggressive. That's not my imagination.

When the general public sees all this on television, it is extremely influential (such is the power of television media). And, of course, all of this is repeated on social media. So I don't think it's a strawman at all.

> It's not a democracy, but it's not the dystopia it's caricatured as in Western media.

It's not liberal democracy. It's not democracy as defined in the West.

It's the Chinese model of democracy, or what is known as "whole-process people's democracy."

And it works for the Chinese. That's the big takeaway.

That's why the Chinese regard China as the most democratic nation in the world, according to Latana's Democracy Perception Index 2022.

I've been to China many times over the past 25 years. I've been to practically every corner of China. My knowledge of China is comprehensive.

Your comment makes no sense to me.

I am certain you've never been to China.

https://youtu.be/uBchAUGW7Bk

Perhaps I overstated the poverty in HK. But my point was that many people there cannot afford to travel. They live paycheck to paycheck; they have very little in the way of savings. I know people in HK, including family. Most people in HK are not well-off.

When you add these to the people who are living in poverty, that doesn't leave for a lot of travelers.

I assume you know that the majority of Hong Kong citizens live in poverty. They can barely afford a roof over their heads, much less international travel.

But perhaps you've never experienced poverty, so you may not know.

China is Bad: https://youtu.be/KuPuXAUXZjY.

Hong Kong's population is only 7 million or so, a tiny fraction of 120 million travelers, assuming every Hongkonger went on international tours.

Of course, I don't read "boring reports". I mostly read opinion pieces and journalists with on-site reporting.

I've followed Western media studiously for years. NYT, WSJ, CNN, BBC, etc. I've yet to see a story about China that doesn't spin things negatively for China. It doesn't have to be "extreme reporting."

True, but my point is that no population has a consensus. Whether you live in China or the West, there are people who know the truth and people who don't know the truth. There are people who are well-informed and people who are ignorant.

You didn't read the article. Latana's Democracy Perception Index for 2022 shows that the Chinese believe their country is democratic.

Stats do show at least 120 million Chinese have travelled outside the country every year (except, of course, during the pandemic years). This is not speculation requiring optimism.

And, by the way, there are also many ways in which our liberal democracy doesn't work for us. Look at our breathtaking Covid death tolls. Look at our staggering inflation and energy shortages. Look at the current mass protests all across Europe over the cost of living. Look at the media censorship over the truth about the Ukraine war. I could go on and on and on.

Whether or not we think it's democratic is irrelevant; the important thing is that the Chinese think it's democratic. China's system doesn't have to work for us, as long as it works for them.

The Chinese believe they enjoy just as much freedom as we do. They are informed by their international travel. Every year, over 100 million Chinese travel the world over. They've seen our freedoms in the US, UK, France, Germany, etc.

Exactly! The Chinese do not pretend they have Western liberal democracy, but the democratic system they do have works for them.

Moreover, they've seen how well liberal democracy works for USA, UK, India, Taiwan, Brazil, Hungary, and so on, and they aren't fooled. The question is: why are we?

Just curious, why did you dismiss the Edelman Trust Barometer and other sources cited?

If China had remained a backward, undeveloped country like it was in the 1970s, the world would pay China no heed. China would get zero attention; it would be completely ignored.

Food for thought.

Ignore what?

Have you been to China?

The author isn't saying China is perfect. He's simply pointing out Western anti-China propaganda.

In my experience, type-related programming bugs are very rare (less than 2%). That's why I'm not in the least bit concerned with whether or not a language is statically-typed or dynamically-typed. I use both as needed. My favourite languages are Go and Smalltalk.

Smalltalk allows me to do live programming with great ease. This is a huge productivity amplifier. Smalltalk's productivity is much higher than that of any major language in use today.

Indentation-sensitivity is so popular that only one language in the Top 20 programming languages has it. That's nearly 40 years after I saw my first indentation-sensitive language: occam.

Indentation-sensitivity seemed like a great idea in 1983. I'm not convinced today.

I am not Richard Eng. Why would you think that anyone who supports Smalltalk can only be him? Do you really believe there is only one Smalltalk fan throughout the world?

Richard is the most prolific promoter of Smalltalk in years. So I support and applaud his efforts. Why is this so difficult to accept?

This article is mainly about the programming competition. What's wrong with that kind of evangelism? I think it's a great idea. It certainly attracts attention to Smalltalk (Pharo), a relatively obscure language.

If you're grousing about the author's comparison to other languages, he's not showing disrespect by pointing out that their approach to language promotion hasn't produced the desired outcome. He's simply stating the truth.

> competitions for languages, especially to develop particular solutions in a language, happen all the time.

Perhaps, but they aren't well-advertised. It's difficult to find these competitions even using Google search. Where are they???

I'd like to know what programming competitions exist for Clojure, Dart, Elixir, Haskell, Julia, Lua, Nim, and Rust. Can you point to any? Thanks.

This is a decidedly peculiar attitude. The web is a vast global network of hyperlinks — that was its original intent. A web user is expected to follow the hyperlinks to discover more information.

The author provided the key hyperlinks: https://smalltalk.tech.blog/2020/03/07/jrmpc-2020-award-winn... and the YouTube video link, as well, which also links to the main JRMPC website. Once you get to the JRMPC website, you can learn ALL about the competition in great detail, including the source code to the competition!

Moreover, the smalltalk.tech.blog itself shows the author's approach to evangelizing the language. It's one of pure marketing, trying to engage the audience with flashy visuals and more hyperlinks to examples, resources, etc. It's a very nice layout.

The whole point of the web is that a single document doesn't have to cram in all the information in one location. Think of this particular article as an "executive summary." You want to learn more? Follow the hyperlinks and do a deep dive.

The article was never intended to spoon-feed you. Use the web as intended. I did, and I'm more knowledgeable as a result.

Evangelization is "preaching"; it's essentially advertising or marketing.

There's no one way to preach or advertise. One can take a number of different approaches. Presenting technical information is one way, the most common way. It's how most languages are promoted. But most languages never succeed with this approach. Most languages never gain much mind share.

So the author has taken another approach, something that is seldom attempted. The programming competition is an original and clever idea.

I'm not sure how one can "demonstrate the benefits" of a programming language. Most languages have been used successfully in software projects (e.g., Crystal, Elixir, F#, Haxe, Julia, Nim, etc.). Does trotting out these projects prove anything?

Absolutely. Pharo is much like Java: it's VM-based, so Pharo software will run on any platform that has a Pharo VM. This includes Windows, macOS, and Linux.

And if you use PharoJS, which transpiles to JS, the same software will run in any web browser, and on mobile devices (using Apache Cordova).

I disagree. Many languages are technically excellent, but not gaining much mind share. They languish in the job market. For example, at Indeed, Clojure has 393 job postings, Elixir has 430, F# has 156, Haskell has 419, Julia has 706, Lua has 562, and Nim has 81. These are for the U.S. at the time of writing.

Python has 76,979 job postings, Java has 72,743, and even lowly Perl has 14,802. Technical merit is not enough; those lesser languages need marketing.

The fact is, language adoption in the IT industry is very much a matter of luck, fad and fashion.

There's nothing sneaky about it. Right at the start of the third paragraph, it says: "I’m a Smalltalk evangelist and Pharo is one of these languages."

The author is presenting one example, and pointing to a Pharo programming competition as the key exhibit. It's a pretty impressive competition, too. Impressive prizes. Impressive competition map and Pac-Man style game.

In fact, if you look around the same blog, you'll find a nice comparison to another competition called Battlesnake: https://smalltalk.tech.blog/2020/03/03/battlesnake-the-compe.... JRMPC seems to be a cut above.