Hi Smalltalkers,

This is my first post on your list. My name is Randy Manning and I am from Waco Texas. I've been programming since 1980 and have been Smalltalking since ~1994. 

My first "useful" Smalltalk application was written in Visual Smalltalk V3.11 (by: ParkPlace Digitalk - Now ObjectShare). This program is an industrial simulator constructor. It has a toolbox containing common components found in an industrial factory - conveyors, motors, pumps, tanks, pipes, hoppers, etc. These component objects are dragged from the toolbox and dropped onto a workspace. One then drags connections from one component to another and assigns the appropriate connections of output to input via popup menu selections. I wrote this simulator constructor because I had written a specific-solution simulator in Visual Basic. This Visual Basic program was so easy to use and understand that my coworkers soon came to me wanting many other simulations of processes that occur in the factory where I work. It had taken me two months to write (and rewrite...) the Visual Basic simulation. I did not have enough time to write every simulation they wanted in Visual Basic so, I decided to create the simulator constructor in Smalltalk (Oh yess - I've seen the light) forget VB for something as powerful and flexible as Smalltalk! It took me two months to write the simulator constructor. I decided to reconstruct the simulation that I had created with my VB program as a first test of the time saving offered by my new Smalltalk creation. It took only three days to recreate my original VB simulator, and my Smalltalk simulator was far superior. I now have a tool with which I can create a new simulation within a day or so, instead of the months that would be required to accomplish the same with VB. 

Now I understand that Visual Smalltalk has been discontinued. It has been replaced by Visual Works. The two are not compatible by any means. Visual Works is a complete Smalltalk rewrite - from ground up. There isn't even a hope of being able to use any of my simulator code within Visual Works. Visual Works has a totally different hierarchy.

I love the Smalltalk paradigm. It is so fast and powerful. But unfortunately no one has set a useable standard of the language for developers. Squeak looks like the best place to start - seriously! I'm not saying that we have to rewrite Squeak. I only suggest that serious developers consider adding to the existing Squeak hierarchy an extension of classes devoted to the needs of end-user software developers. Most needed would be a Smalltalk to C translator for the end-user development extension classes, which would be capable of handling several of the most common hardware platforms. This translator would need to be high-level buffered from specific hardware/OS requirements much as Smalltalk uses a few primitives to buffer the hardware/OS specifics from the programmer. The Developer badly needs the equivalent of VB's GUI designer. This tool was available in Visual Smalltalk as the "Workbench". Squeak, as far as I know, offers no equivalent GUI builder system.

I am willing to work with others to develop this most useful extension to Squeak.  Squeak has been more difficult for me to learn and use than Visual Smalltalk was, so please feel free to let me know how ignorant I am about any of the issues that I have thus far discussed. I think most of us here are very serious programmers - Smalltalk just seems to naturally attract those types. 

~ Randy

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