I have heard this summarized by the term: "build it and they will come". I think the data visualization aspect is where Pharo entering BigData space could really payoff. That comes down to data manipulation. Can Pharo read Avro?
- HH On Sun, Oct 29, 2017 at 14:00, Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <offray.l...@mutabit.com> wrote: > Thanks a lot Paulo for starting this thread and all the participants for the > clever and enlightening answers. I just want to add my two cents. On 26/10/17 > 07:53, Dimitris Chloupis wrote: > > My personal opinion is that as > pessimistic it may sound, Smalltalk has > very little to offer in the library > front. The language is still > stellar and live environment is a great > concept but from there on > there is a decline. Sure if your are low demand > kind of person on the > library front and dont mind implementing stuff by > yourself you wont > mind the lack of libraries but most coders , me included > , dont have > this luxury. Especially making a living with a language is a > > completely different story from learning it as a hobby, > > I think and > that's a personal opinion, that Smalltalk goes the wrong > direction. It > tries to be a do it all language, but we already have an > army of do it all > languages. I think it would excel as the backbone in > big complex projects. > Like the Moose project is doing with code > analysis and visualization. I > think this is an excellent direction to > go with Smalltalk. Reflection is > the big strength of Smalltalk the > ability to communicate with its code in a > direct matter. So I think > that a Smalltalk implementation that can analyze > and visualize code > written in other languages would have been a pretty > serious reason for > people to learn Smalltalk. > > I am very happy to see > Pharo go towards that direction and yes I would > definitely recommend it > without hesitation for code analysis and > project management tool. Its no > coincidence that we have seen a > serious growth in our community. When I > joined back in 2011 we all > were posting at pharo-dev, pharo-users was a > dead zone and then the > community grow larger and larger we soon may need a > third mailing list. > > Code complexity is an issues for all large projects > and tools that > help manage this without having to convert to another > language are > very popular. About finding niche where you can learn Pharo > and make a living from it, I think that I may be behind a sweet spot in the > field of reproducible research and data storytelling and visualization, for > different fields like activism, journalism, science and engineering. I'm > "working in my PhD", so I don't get paid for using Pharo & friends (well if > fact I'm in a loan to finish my PhD), but using Pharo have allowed my to get > more dynamic results that with previous technologies (mostly Python and Web > ones). By being able to prototype quickly I have improved my research > experience and results, which is a way to improve research (self) funding. > Also, activists, journalist, researchers and other novices interested in data > storytelling and visualization, care little about popularity of the language > or being able to make apps (mobile or web). What they care is about being > able to tell the story and Pharo, agile visualization and moldable tools, > have a lot to offer in this front. They're easy to learn and to adapt to fit > the needs of the problems behind those stories, as we have done with > Grafoscopio[1]. So, is nice to be part of a "trend", (data science, > reproducible research, data storytelling and data visualization) but not > being part of one that doesn't give you the freedom to use tools that matter > to you, because of the ideas they embody and the added value they create for > you and your community. [1] http://mutabit.com/grafoscopio/index.en.html > Also, being in Latin America, means that we can bootstrap ourselves into > alternative futures by using alternative (digital) infrastructures and tools, > without to much worry about the deep investments in money and/or expertise on > bloated/popular technologies (we don't have such investments here!). We can > learn from the experience of the "Global North", without following that path, > but by taking a critical approach to it (for example regarding overcomplex, > non-dynamic, bloated technologies). On the community front, I think is > important to do something to break the circular logic of popularity: > Smalltalk is unpopular, so we don't get developers, so we don't have > libraries, and this makes such tech unpopular. We're a nascent community of > data storytellers and activists learning how to use Pharo to tell our voices > and how to modify the tools to tell them in more potent/fluid ways. We have > done this mostly by ourselves, without any support from industry or > government and mostly none from academy. Despite of the fragility of our > hackerspace[2], this has been done in a consistent way since almost two > years[3] (I started to learn Pharo, in a sparse way, 3 years ago). So, there > are ways to break the circular logic and bootstrap communities around the > advantages of the Pharo/Smalltalk environment in places where it can be > aligned to the trends but also take a critical approach to them by providing > added value. [2] http://hackbo.co/ [3] http://mutabit.com/dataweek/ So > finding a niche and bootstrapping tools and communities in it, seems a way to > deploy the Smalltalk Argument by example into the world, which is a pretty > powerful way to argument against skeptics. Cheers, Offray
