Hi, (I don't know if there is a netiquete rule of _this list_ about top-posting inter-posting or bottom-posting, so I will start here).
Is good to see a thread like those with different points, so thanks to all participants. I agree with several of them. I think that Smalltalk advocacy is important, but it happens in different ways, some write prose for that, some code, some both. In my case, Smalltalk has the strongest point by blurring the frontier between separate concerns: language, IDE, tools, writing/execution time and is an experience that may other computing environments, frameworks and languages are trying to bring (see Svelte, DarkLang, Elm, Clojure and so on). I still think that the way Smalltalk blurs concerns and the live coding experience it creates by doing so, is unbeatable. But the way Smalltalk expose its advantages works in particular domains (research, prototyping) and not so well in others (mobile) where others are delivering more and faster apps for the developer and user. In my case, Smalltalk environments, particularly Pharo, work well because I used it for my PhD research prototyping and is well suited for my exploration of new domains (for example I'm now exploring the Scuttlebutt protocol and social network [1] in Pharo). But I have not being able to convince any of my coder friends to switch to Pharo instead of C++, Java or Javacript, which by the way, is the language they already know and use to put bread on the table on a daily basis. I have been more successful convincing philosophers, librarians, journalists in using Pharo and they enjoy it, but I have not any Pharo related local job proposal and I doubt I will have it. [1] https://scuttlebutt.nz/ So I think that we deal with a paradox: while Smalltalk advocacy is better suited for a Blue Ocean Strategy[2], exploring and implementing new/emerging scenarios and markets, money is already mostly invested in Red Oceans of constituted technologies and practices ecosystems. Bridging both is pretty difficult. I will share some Blue Ocean experiments, but still they are, as usual, weekend and holidays projects without any promise or resources for a sustained rhythm or deliverables. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy Also, there is an important consequence of Richard's (and others) outreach strategies and is the "inner-reach" echoes of them, so we have this kind of talks that are worthy and not so frequent about the inter subjectivities in our community and the ways we think and experience about Smalltalk in the present and in the future. Thank you all, Offray On 10/01/20 10:53 a. m., Marten Feldtmann wrote: > Am 10.01.20 um 15:42 schrieb horrido: > >>> So let's stop trying to convince people with things that mattered some >>> 20 years ago. Even the function point thingie we keep carrying in front >>> of our bellies (Capers-Jones was it?) is a lie when you want to build an >>> application for today's markets. >> I disagree that it's a lie. The study is based on thousands of projects and >> millions of lines of code over a period of several decades, including recent > Well, naming it a "lie" is perhaps too strong - but Joachim (did you > have a bad Smalltalk day ?????) statement is from my point of view > correct - this talking about function point and productivity is an > academic point. > > If I am a Java developer and my productivity is around 10% compared to > Smalltalk developer it is still useful to use Java - because for my > problem there might exists already dozen of libraries and solutions. > > Using Smalltalk today is matter of personal taste and love - like many > other developers in other languages. > > Joachim mentioned the critical points and for me perhaps the following > statements are true: > > * Smalltalk development over the last decade ran in circles > > and due to that > > * Smalltalk is not solving the biggest problems any more > > So many time has been wasted to make a Smalltalk dialect running in a > browser. > > I would use (my loved) Smalltalk today only, if > > * I have an application, which was written in Smalltalk (and I have one) > > * Smalltalk is superior to other solutions in a specific topic (and with > Gemstone I have one topic) > > When I would start from scratch ... build a headless Smalltalk, put lots > of good communication libraries into it, spread it over Windows, Mac and > Linux, make it open source and put some XML and JSON and solve printing, > multithreading/multiprocessing (framework) runtime AND (!) debugging, > scripting, interconnections with other languages. Try adding a modelling > and source code generator. Build the whole stuff with concurrency in > mind - offer specific data structure to help you here. Look for suitable > persistency options. > > Go back to the time, where Smalltalk source code was hold in a > repository to manually work with it and and not getting software via > Github with some broken relationships between packages and nobody knows why. > > Use the browser (with Javascript) as the main UI and build a superior > interface in Javascript to the backend Smalltalk. Use the Electron > framework and build some specific support for Smalltalk into that. > > But even with that in mind you will not catch the Javascript developers > (because they are on that way already and they do not need Smalltalk), > but you may survive as a Smalltalk developer. > > Spread the word around, that multi-language development is a MUST and > one should support it. > > So, to summarize - this is my personal view of Smalltalk today - since > 1986, where I first met Georg Heeg on a Atari fair in Düsseldorf seeing > the first Smalltalk system in my life. > > Marten > > > >
