I thought it would be an interesting idea to have a presentation where we compared Smalltalk to one of our dynamic language cousins. Of these next kin it seemed to me that from the most popular languages that Ruby was the closest. So I approached the NYC Ruby chairperson, Patrick May. We met at the cafe at the New Yorker Hotel , right around from Suite LLC where we hold our meetings and for a couple hours we chatted but mostly went through the VisualWorks IDE. I brought a copy of VW 7.4 NC which I let him have. Patrick apparently has been a fan of Smalltalk but did not know quite where to start.

I wonder, has anybody written a “making the transition” type of tutorial i.e. that which understands that most new comers to Smalltalk will be used to file based environments and just unfamiliar with the “live” image concept that Smalltalk presents.

But I digress, details for our May presentation:

Date: June 7th, 2006

Location: 440 W. 9th Avenue, between 34th and 35th , 8th Fl

Time: 6:30 to approx 8:30

The presentation actually starts at 7pm , but there is an open house from 6:30 – 7pm.

Abstract:

Patrick May will give an introduction to the Ruby language, highlighting similarities and
differences from Smalltalk. He will also speak on the viability of Ruby in various
real-world scenarios

Bio:

Patrick May is a programmer, organiser, and artist. May is Director of Technology at
Rhizome.org, a new media arts community. Since 2002, he has been developing ruby-web,
a ruby environment optimised for the web. He has presented ruby-web at the 2002 and
2004 Ruby Conferences.

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