OSNews

I don't blame you if you're confused.

I'll say a few things to make this croquet thing clearer to those of you who still care.

#1 Croquet is not just Croquet.
#2 Croquet is a 3D extension/framework for Squeak.
#3 Squeak is very, very weird. Really. I'm not kidding.

I've been dabbling in Squeak for the past couple months and this is what I can tell you about it. I'm going to be overly and incorrectly simple, but it's easier to describe Squeak this way:

Squeak is an object-oriented (the only TRUE object oriented) programming/operating environment/language.

There aren't any "applications" as you know them. There are simply classes. These classes can be bunched up to form something similar to what you call "applications" but they really aren't. These "applications" don't have their own memory addresses. These classes simply work on Squeak's big fat greek pool of objects.

Squeak is 100% open. It is open source, it is open-architecture. That means that if you don't like the way 2+2 works, you can change it without a recompile (because Squeak is also semi-interpreted ala Java).

This means that it doesn't matter how the Croquet people have set up their controls with the mouse. You could hack it to where you control the viewport using your microphone, if you wanted to (or brave enough). So the user interface objections are a moot point.

The best way to clear up Croquet for people who have gotten this far without their heads exploding is this:

Imagine you boot up into CroquetOS. You don't wait very long, because your entire memorybank state was preserved from last time. You are in a QuakeIIIArena sort of 3D game world. It's nighttime in a rocky desert. The moon is hanging low in between two rock spires. The moon is flashing on and off. You look directly at the moon with your mouse. It explodes. The pieces of the exploded moon coalesce into words. They say: "email from: bgates@microsoft.net subject: ok, ok, you win."

You dismiss the moon, and it comes back together and shines again.

You look at one of the funny-looking rock formations. It breaks free from the ground, rushes at you at top speed, stops within inches of your head, and breaks in two.. revealing a 3D chatroom (set in Vegas) on one piece, and yesterday's song you wrote (since you're a musician) in the other. You "walk" into the 3D chatroom. You are now in Vegas. Behind you is the doorway back to your rock canyon.

You bring up your web browser, Scamper. You type in the address www.osnews.com. You see a story posted about something called Croquet.

You think I'm making this up? You think this is impossible? Everything I've described is doable _right now_ with this Croquet thing. All it takes is some creativity and motivation to learn the Smalltalk language. And Smalltalk ain't hard. Kids grasp it.

People usually come across Squeak and come to two conclusions. One: "Good lord, this is the holy grail of computing! I can't believe nobody told me about this!" You then are sucked into Squeak and are never heard from again.

Two: "What in God's name is this? No applications? No compiling? Everything is open? I can't make sense of it all! I'll ignore it and maybe my brain won't melt."

That's the conclusion I came to when I first found Squeak. That's the conclusion I came to the second time I found Squeak. The third time I found Squeak, I grokked. I finally grokked.

Yes, Squeak is weird. But keep in mind that for somethig to be extraordinarily better, it's going to be extraordinarily different.