I recently watched a YouTube video by “Uncle Bob” entitled “The Last Programming Language,” in which the speaker predicts what he believes will be the features of the last, best programming language. After discussing several currently popular languages (C++, Java, JavaScript, PHP, Python, etc.), he admits that all these languages are essentially rehashings of the control and...
Smalltalk is a general-purpose, object-oriented, programming language. Objects are entities consisting of data (numbers, strings, collections, and programmer-defined classes of objects) that are encapsulated by the methods (i.e., functions) defined by the class of the object. No other objects can affect its encapsulated data unless the class provides accessor methods for that data. This description...
In the novel American Democracy Forever, Dr. Charles, Charlie, Durand created an organization oof networked Forum Clubs. In their bylaws, Charlie defined the committees that each club should have to support its efforts: executive, finance, social, and action. There was also a Committee of Correspondence (CoC) to establish and manage communications with other Forum Clubs....
Anyone familiar with the history of computing knows that PARC is shorthand for the Palo Alto Research Center, which was founded by the Xerox Corporation in 1970. Its mission was to explore human/computer communications. This resulted in the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) interface we all use, the Smalltalk programming language, and Ethernet networking. In the...
In 1992, I learned about the Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system that DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) had created for the US military. It allowed ships, planes, and missiles to determine their exact position on Earth. It was also coming into commercial use in many ways, from trucking to farming. I asked myself what...
There are two chapters of the novel American Democracy Forever in which golf plays a significant role. It is how Charlie first obtains a nest egg for future investments, and much later, Charlie plays a round at Bedminster with President Trump. But how does an author who has never played golf write about it convincingly?...
In the novel American Democracy Forever, Charlie watched one of his employees die of HIV/AIDS. It shocked him into memories of the COVID-19 pandemic in his Life 1 that killed his wife and that he barely survived. There is nothing he can do to get President Trump to manage the pandemic in a responsible way,...
Forum Clubs are one of the key ideas of the novel American Democracy Forever. Initially, Dr. Charles, Charlie, Durand had only vague ideas about organizations and how they spread over time, but he knew he could not fight fascism all by himself; he needed help. He created the first Forum Club as a thirteen-year-old student...
