I appreciate all the feedback, even the negative comments. Let me address some of them...
First of all, you need to understand that this article, like nearly all of my other articles, is about /marketing/. I've never made any bones about this. If you know anything about marketing, you know that it involves exaggeration and hyperbole. It sometimes involves bending the truth. The point of marketing is to persuade on an emotional level, not a logical one. This is exactly what companies like Apple and Microsoft do. If you think Apple ads tell the absolute truth, then you are terribly naive. So, is Pharo being used to fight Ebola? Not exactly, but who cares? I'm trying to change people's perception. I'm trying to *move* them. If I have to exaggerate, I will do so. Has everybody heard of Smalltalk? Of course not. And it doesn't matter. I'm taking /literary licence/. As a writer and a marketer, I am allowed to do this. Second, the article hasn't been published yet that pleases everybody. I accept that some people may not like what I've written, and that's perfectly fine. What's not perfectly fine is if the majority of readers are turned off by my article. I do not believe this is the case. I have published literally hundreds of Smalltalk articles over the past three years, most of them on Medium, and I've tracked responses and viewership. As far as I can tell, these articles have been generally well-received. I have something of a fan base! Something else that I've been told: marketing to programmers will not work because they are too smart for that. What a load of bullcrap! Programmers are human beings, and all human beings are susceptible to marketing. My Smalltalk campaign over the past three years have proven that it works. So why should I stop? Third,... > You will not convince people to use Pharo by spitting on everything else. What am I spitting on? I claim that the way everybody has been doing programming, ie, with file-based languages, has not been ideal for productivity. That's not insulting. That's just the truth. Isn't that why we use Pharo (Smalltalk)? For productivity reasons? > But even more important is that I don't understand why people always talk > about the future when the only thing they do is telling the past. The future is always based on the past. There is no future if you ignore the past (and the present). Again, the reason for bringing up BYTE magazine is to move people. And it seems to work. Telling people about how Smalltalk was once a high flyer in the 1990s and that IBM chose Smalltalk as the centrepiece of their VisualAge enterprise initiative to replace COBOL also works. Giving this information to people will offer some comfort and confidence that choosing Pharo won't be a mistake. If my marketing campaign is hurting Smalltalk and Pharo, you'll have to show me the evidence. If you can, then I will stop. I am only here to serve you. -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
