On 10/01/20 1:52 p. m., horrido 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." > > 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. > I have invested time and energy in Smalltalk. Since 2014 I have organized 500+ hours of workshops and hackathons which lead us to our local success story [1].
[1] https://mutabit.com/repos.fossil/grafoscopio/doc/tip/Docs/En/success-story.md But, from that experience, I see pretty difficult that coders which are already using other languages and frameworks for their daily jobs, use Pharo/Smalltalk when precisely their jobs is to maintain and extend the stuff that they are already using. I have had better experience with non coders (i.e: librarians, journalists and so on), presenting such "new" ideas and practices. Grafoscopio is suited at non-coders that don't mind to code or are curious about coding, but they need to intertwine code with prose, data and visualization. I think that a place where coders and non-coders can meet is at Blue Ocean places (that's why I'm starting to explore Scuttlebutt protocol). Can we start to find such blue oceans to explore together in a playful and practical sense, where we can showcase the advantages of Pharo/Smalltalk ? That could be a pretty good advocacy. Cheers, Offray
