I almost forgot to blog about it, but I went to the Dynamic Languages day at the VUB on Monday, together with Yves.
I was always interested in learning new programming languages, and getting to know their unique features and viewpoints. After learning Python and Ruby, I became curious after the roots of these languages (being amongst others Lisp and Smalltalk). Since there were introductions and tutorials for these languages at the DLD, it was too good to miss.
The day started with a nice introduction to Scheme by Viviane Jonckers, explaining why they used it as a first programming language for their students.
Then there was a introduction to and demo of Smalltalk by Roel Wuyts and Johan Brichau. The afternoon ended with an Self tutorial by Ellen Van Paesschen.
In the afternoon Pascal Costanza delved into the internals of CLOS, the Common Lisp Object System.
Afterwards at the reception, I had a nice chat with the other attendants and organizers. I also met someone who I had seen before at the anti-software patents manifestations.
All in all, it was a interesting day, and I learned a lot about the presented languages. The list of Lisp links in my del.icio.us account also keeps growing. The organizers said they were planning to upload videos of the presentations at the website, so I’ll keep an eye on the website for updates.
Edit: the movies are now available at the event’s website