[OT] Is there a relationship between Xtalk languages andsmalltalk?

[Richard Gaskin]

Kat wrote:
> My theory all along has been that Microsoft liked CD-ROM so much because 
> it allowed them to deliver bloatware....  but then I'm just prejudiced.

"PRE-judiced" was something we used to do.  But now that more than two 
dozen governments around the world have found Microsoft guilty of the 
very things we've been suspecting all along, today we're merely 
"judiced". :)

As for CD ROM, one of the benefits to having started in the industry 
before it was popular is that my earliest training was in making things 
as lightweight as possible to fit onto a floppy. When CDs came along 
some younger folks considered my habits anachronistic -- that is, until 
just a couple years later when the Internet became the "ultimate killer 
app" and suddenly file size was important again.

It's rarely a mistake to err on the side of resource efficiency.


I recall a vendor of CD-ROM recorders trying to have a conversation with 
me about financing a $7500 unit (it was one of three on the market at 
the time).  I balked, and said I'd continue shipping on floppy until the 
price came down.  He literally laughed at me, as though I was on crazy 
pills.  I only used floppies for another year: by the following year CD 
recorders had broken the thousand dollar barrier and pricing was in free 
fall.

That's another nice thing about being part of the over-40 crowd:  when 
you go around the block that many times you know that, thanks to Moore's 
Law and market dynamics, computing is one of the few industries that 
consistently rewards the procrastinator.


PS: Kat, I've read some of your articles debunking poplar myths about 
data volatility on optical media -- good work, thanks for reintroducing 
rational thinking and well-supported arguments into that discussion. :)

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World Media Corporation
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