Really.

At the language level we will all agree that it is an increidibly simple
language.

It does have an extensive class library but Java is getting there if
anything Java is probably already becoming over engineered.

And how long would it take to learn Microsofts MFC classes?

Within a month of being given Smalltalk training I was "productive"
Smalltalk resource for the corp employing me (a large southeastern utility
i.e. not a rinki dink project) granted I was building views but still
productive and I am not that stout of a soul.

I also personally mentored kids straight from school (for the same corp) and
very quickly had them taking care of bug fixes (not mine). My project
manager at the time was quite happy with their "productivity". So what do we
mean by "productivity".  It certainly seems to meet business manager's
definition of productivity.

I'm sorry I do not think that the ST learning curve is really all that
steep. Getting used to thinking about objects
is where people that come from a non -- OO background hit the mind block.
The syntax is different but not a big deal if anything far more intuitive.

Charles
OCIT

-----Original Message-----
From: sqrmax at cvtci.com.ar <sqrmax at cvtci.com.ar>
To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu <squeak at cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Saturday, February 13, 1999 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: Re: Microsoft shopping for Java alternative


>Hi...
>
>>I think the biggest failing of smalltalk has been that there is just so
>>much you have to learn before you can be even minimally productive.. and
>>that's a disincentive for all but the stoutest soul.
>
>Yep, the greatest problem is the critical mass needed to understand. It's
>much bigger than any other language's. Nevertheless, there's a phrase in
>Spanish that is used for this kind of situations...
>
>"El que quiere celeste, que le cueste"
><He who wants it to be light blue, needs to work some to get such hue>
>
>This also has to do with managers. Lower the costs immediately = C++. And
>most managers really don't understand anything about computers (something
like
>neither "computer vendors and manufacturers" - Alan).
>
>Andres.
>