[Newbies] Re: Why hasn't Smalltalk been wildly accepted?

[David Douthitt]

Keith Hodges wrote:
> Its all down to marketing marketing and more marketing.

christo wrote:
> Very true. It's something I've observed many brilliant programmers 
> utterly fail to grasp.

I agree completely.  Also, when programmers turn to "marketing" they 
tend to speak of things like "dynamic languages are easier to program" 
and "smalltalk is the best object-oriented language" and "smalltalk 
invented OO."

However, to really make Smalltalk take off requires an attention to 
the "middle manager" and the "corporate IT person."

To my mind, one problem with Smalltalk - and with LISP and FORTH, by 
the way - is the befuddlement when someone asks "Yes, but I want a 
standalone executable, not a new environment." (I might add that all 
three languages are *tops* for me....)

Here are "selling points" I would suggest:

* Rapid prototyping: "I can produce an example of what you want in 
record time."

* Rapid programming: "The time to create a working program is much 
less than anything else."

* Time-honored and tested: "Smalltalk is not a new technology; it has 
decades of knowledge embedded in it."

* Rapid debugging: "Debugging can happen almost in realtime."

I might add here that I can remember an ad for Smalltalk which 
described the speed of the Smalltalk team in a programming 
competition.  Need I say it - the Smalltalk team finished the project 
first (I don't know if they received first place).

> The name "Smalltalk" also smells by the way. Java used to smell a bit 
> because it sounds kinda funky and unprofessional on first hearing to a 
> middle manager, but over time this reaction has been marketed away. 
> "Smalltalk" sounds to those folk like something feeble, uncapable. It 
> can be overcome but only with attention paid to promotion.

I disagree on both counts.  Java sounds (to me) warm, comfortable, 
known (with its association with coffee). The feel of "Smalltalk" is 
harder to pin down given its age - for me, it conjures up the image of 
a multicolored hot-air balloon and an island in a sea :-)

PS: I do remain a "newbie" myself, though...