This is exactly why I also push Smalltalk's simplicity. In the 1970s, Per Brinch Hansen posited that a small, simple language would lead to fewer programmer errors. The result of his work was the Edison programming language. It was published in his book, "Programming a Personal Computer," which is one of my favourite programming books.
Of course, Per Brinch Hansen wasn't alone in this belief. It was also shared by Niklaus Wirth who created Pascal and Oberon. So it's not just Smalltalk's live programming environment that we should herald. The size and simplicity of the language is a big deal. Richard Sargent wrote > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 1:52 PM horrido < > horrido.hobbies@ > > wrote: > >> Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas-2 wrote >> > 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. >> > >> > 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. >> >> Yes, that is the principal obstacle and challenge. When I'm pushing >> Smalltalk, I mention the language's simplicity and conciseness, I >> mention the purity of the object-oriented model, I mention the >> built-in IDE, and so on. But the key advantage that I emphasize >> is *programmer productivity*. >> >> I realize it's hard to argue with the availability of jobs for Java, >> Python, >> JavaScript, etc. It's hard to argue with their rich ecosystems. It's >> hard to argue with the status quo of established code bases and >> IT infrastructures. But we have to make them believe that >> Smalltalk can cut their development time in half, if not better. >> >> What is it worth to a company to cut their development time in half? >> It means much lower development cost. It means much shorter >> "time to market." >> > > It also means much lower error rates. Capers Jones also review errors / > lines of code and Smalltalk was substantially better than the C derivative > languages. I don't recall the ration, but I think the Namcook report does > include it. > > Fewer errors means a higher ratio of time spent delivering functionality > and a better customer experience. (We can't do anything about bad design > and UX practices, of course and unfortunately. Although, I suspect without > evidence that Smalltalkers may do a better job of both.) > > >> Is this not worth investing time and energy in Smalltalk? Even if the >> job opportunities aren't there. Even if it means overhauling your >> IT infrastructure. >> >> The investment can lead to more users and more jobs. If they don't >> believe it, then we have failed. >> >> >> >> -- >> Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html >> >> -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
