[Seaside] Should I become a Seasider?

[Sean Allen]

Continuations have always been a minor part of seaside for me.

For me, the power of seaside is in persisted objects on the server side
that allow you to write a very minimal amount of code for querying and updating.

There is a great deal of value in learning seaside. Now, will that
help you make money
as an independent developer? I doubt it... but to say that the main
feature of Seaside
was continuations well... not for me. It isn't what drew me and it
never will be.

I suggest you watch Avi's Smalltalk Solutions talk once it goes up online as he
spends a decent amount of time talking about the strengths of Seaside as well.



On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 6:54 PM, Richard Durr
<richard.durr at googlemail.com> wrote:
> I strongly advice against it.
> Even though Seaside did provide an advantage in the past. That was because
> of its main feature (continuations), which allows development of web
> application that use pure html. However AJAX and WebApps coded in Javascript
> triumph in almost all circumstances continuations. In this video, Avi
> Bryant, the original creator of Seaside
> explains: http://blip.tv/file/3039582
> I suggest you learn Javascript and after that CoffeeScript. Take a look at
> Sproutcore.
>
> On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Ralph Boland <rpboland at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> This post is about making a living as a web developer using Seaside.
>>
>> I am an unemployed software developer in Calgary (1,000,000 people),
>> Alberta, Canada.
>> I have used Squeak for years but I have found no Smalltalk work in Calgary
>> and in fact know of only one small company in Calgary that uses Smalltalk.
>>
>> I know very little about Seaside.  My impression is that websites
>> developed using
>> Seaside are somewhat slower than with other web development tools and that
>> Seaside uses more memory (I assume on the server side) than other web
>> development tools.  Nevertheless there are web developers using
>> Seaside successfully.
>> Are these impressions correct?
>>
>> What I am wondering is should I learn Seaside and then attempt to sell my
>> web
>> development services in Calgary?  My impression is that:
>> 1)  No one in Calgary has ever heard of Seaside so selling my services
>> would be difficult.
>> 2)  Since I should be able to develop web sites faster using Seaside I
>> should be able to
>>     offer my services at a discount and hopefully be able to find
>> business that way.  But
>>     since no one but myself (at least locally) would be able to
>> maintain the web sites,
>>     potential customers are going to be very shy.
>> Are these impressions correct?
>>
>> Lets assume I decide to become a web developer (something I know
>> almost nothing about)
>> using Seaside as my competitive edge. To my knowledge I would be the
>> only Seaside
>> web developer in Calgary.
>>
>> 1)  How long (starting basically from scratch) is it going to take
>> before I am competent;
>>     or at least competent enough to seek clients?  Assume I am a
>> competent Squeak developer.
>>
>> 2)  Which version(s) of Smalltalk should I use?
>>     I know Squeak and have used Visualworks in the distant past.
>>
>> 3)  How screwed will my clients be if my ticker stops unexpectedly.
>> Can Seaside developers
>>     from outside Calgary pick up the slack for my hypothetical clients?
>>
>> 4)  Is there any areas within the web development would that I should
>> concentrate on or avoid?
>>
>> 5)  Is there any additional software/hardware that I would need other than
>> my
>>     home computer (running Ubuntu) and Squeak/Seaside?
>>     My resources for investments is very limited.
>>
>> Are there other questions that I should have asked?
>>
>> Starting a business is generally a tough deal so please don't butter me up
>> with glowing reviews of Seaside.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Ralph Boland
>> _______________________________________________
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>> seaside at lists.squeakfoundation.org
>> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside
>
>
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