Squeak went the Mouse

Posted by Doug on Aug 25, 2009 in Thoughts | 0 comments

No, I didn’t spell it incorrectly. Squeak is the name of a project created by Alan Kay and others some many years ago at Apple. What makes Squeak unique is that it is a truly interactive programming language. Not an input device, wireless or corded, but an object oriented language that has both a wysiwyg interface and a complete code view for the hackers amongst us. To quote from their website:

Unlike the standard static, file-based approach of other languages such as Ruby or Python, Squeak offers a true uniform fully reflective environment – real live objects. In this environment, when a change is made to an object, its behavior changes immediately without having to restart the system. You can even modify or create objects while the application is running.

Think about that for a minute. You can make changes to a system while it is running and immediately see the impact of those changes on the system.

Squeak promises to provide an environment where education flourishes. Interactive learning ‘toys’ are bundled in the system and can be manipulated by users as young as 10. And no knowledge of programming languages is required.

A few years back at Telluride Tech Festival I had the opportunity to meet with Alan Kay and get a full overview of the system. He showed us an ‘object’ that was a cannon that fired cannon balls that were affected by gravity as they flew across the screen. A student makes adjustments to the formulas governing the motion and immediately see the impact on the trajectory of the balls. This provides a robust learning environment much improved over the traditional paper and pencil method of learning physics formulas.

Have a look at Squeak. It is easy to install and run on any system.