Funding

Anthony Hannan ajh18 at cornell.edu
Thu Dec 12 20:52:19 UTC 2002


Hello Squeakers,

I've been funding myself, working on Squeak full-time for over a year and
a half.  I was more interested in Squeak and working on it, than
worrying about where my next job would come from.  In the back of my
mind, I was hoping that my work would catch someone's eye who is willing
to pay for more Squeak work.  But unfortunately, there doesn't seem to
be anyone with money interested in Squeak.  As a back up (in the back of
my mind), I thought I could get my own small business customers, once I
was done with all the enhancement I want to do to Squeak.  But
unfortunately, VI4 took too much time, so I haven't even done half the
stuff I want to do to get it ready for customers.

I want to turn Squeak into a world-wide-web of objects with security,
call it SqueakWeb, so customers can share their data easily.  I decided
to do VI4 to separate blocks from their home methods so they can be
distributed independently, and to speed up Squeak in general.  I wasn't
sure how much I could speed it up, but after looking at the inefficient
message sending code in the Interpreter, I couldn't resist.  So I
started the project thinking it would take me 3 months.  At first I
tried to support both image formats together in the same image; that was
a mistake and a waste of time.  Then I wasted time on a couple bad
designs/implementation of the Smalltalk compiler.  The difficult part of
the compiler was analyzing var usage and finding first and last uses of
each var so they don't have to be initialized up front.  Also, I was
trying everything I could to squeeze as much performance out of the
Interpreter.  I didn't want to give after putting so much effort into it
and I wanted it to be "right".  I ended up spending a over a year
full-time on VI4, altogether.  But I'm finally satisfied with the end
result (I didn't give up).  I guess you can say I was obsessed.  In hind
sight, I wish I never started the project.  There are more important
things that need to be done to reach my SqueakWeb goal, like layers,
security, persistence, and distributed objects.

So now I find myself out of money, and not done with what I wanted to
get done with my "Squeak sabatical".  But I don't want to give up my
SqueakWeb dream.

Should I apply for grants?  Do people know any they could recommend.  Is
it possible to get a grant without having a PhD nor an association with
a unversity or research institution.  I only have a Masters.

Should I apply for a PhD?  You usually get funding as a PhD student,
right?  Will most schools foster/fund Squeak work?  Unfortunately, its
past the deadline for most schools, I will need funding before
Jan/September 2004.

Should I look for venture capital investors?  Unfortunately, this would
require making my work proprietary which would go against the
world-wide-web concept.

How is everyone else on this list being funded?

I don't want to have to give up and work on another system, not even
another Smalltalk.  Squeak is the future in my eyes and working on
anything else is a waste of time.

Any suggestions?  Anyone out there who would be willing to fund me?  I
would work for minimum wage to work on Squeak.  My projects/resume is on
my website on the swiki at
http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/AnthonyHannan.

Thanks,
Anthony



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