Smalltalk-80 vs Interlisp-D

[Paolo Amoroso]

The 1988 paper Smalltalk and Exploratory Programming, based on the experience with Smalltalk-80 at Tektronix, among other things, compares some similarities and differences between Smalltalk-80 and Interlisp-D, a couple of which I'm not sure are entirely accurate. On page 4 of the PDF:

A user must be able to find the abstractions relevant to the current task. This has been a problem in Interlisp-D, Unix, and Smalltalk-80, but has not been seriously addressed in any of these environments. Unix does offer some tools for finding things. The manuals include a permuted index and the man command can search by keyword.

Isn't APROPOS equivalent to Unix man's search by keyword? Interlisp-D could also look up keywords in the IRM via HELPSYS and DInfo.

On page 5:

Code in the Smalltalk-80 environment is easier to understand than in the Interlisp-D environment. This is supported by the fact that programmers share code at the source text level in Smalltalk-80, whereas this is rare in Interlisp-D.

Weren't symbolic files and the File Manager widely used on Interlisp?

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Paolo Amoroso | Blog | Mastodon

[Larry Masinter]

I don't remember APROPOS or DInfo being available in early Interlisp. And the software releases didn't usually ship with sources.

LarryMasinter.net  https://interlisp.org

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