On Wed, May 07, 2003 at 11:19:53PM +0200, Andreas Raab wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
> 
> As this is going to be my last post in this thread (really! I promise ;) 

And just when I'm finally getting into it!

> I
> want to thank you for this discussion. Even if we have different opinions it
> was a real pleasure to have this discussion with you.
> 
> > I'm saying you and other groups will be able to pursue "strategies" of
> > inclusion, including releasing (somewhat) tailored image, in a Squeak
> > world that supports sharing very well. 
> > 
> > IIUC, you're saying that if this were so you would be happy, but you
> > don't trust we'll get there. Right?
> 
> Sigh. Yeah, that's one part of it but not all. My concerns really can't be
> put into some mechanical solution or other - it's a general feeling that I
> get when I look over what's happening to Squeak, how things develop, what
> priorities are set. Having been in the Squeak community from its very
> beginning, I have seen many changes (some for the good, some for the bad),
> many successes, a few utter failures. But never before did I have the
> feeling that Squeak is as strongly drifting off towards a direction where I
> cannot see any future for it. 

I have been reading this thread quite closely, since I fall into the
media-Squeaker camp, and since I respect your opinion enough to look
up when you say that the sky is falling :-) I understand where you are
coming from, and I share your difficulty in precisely articulating it.

(please excuse me for any incorrect words that I put in your mouth...
and consider posting again in this thread to correct me :-)

However, as carefully as I look (and I certainly don't want to miss
anything), I don't think that Squeak-the-medium or
-the-imagination-amplifier is dying.  Your perspective may have been
affected from working within Squeak Central; it may have seemed that
the community was building momentum towards a new Smalltalk worthy of
the 20 years we've had to think about the last one.

I think that it still is, but not in a more circuitous way that you
might have thought and hoped.  

>From outside of SqC, things don't seem much different than before
(with respect to Squeak-the-medium), although the perception of the
Squeak community from outside may very well have shifted towards
viewing us as regular hackers.  While this perception can have
negative consequences, it doesn't mean that the dream is dead.

Those who conceived Smalltalk have always shot for the stars, and from
that perspective, perhaps the post-SqC-community has not been a
stunning success: not everyone has turned out to be a visionary,
leading the way towards a new age of *real* personal computing.  But
perhaps the goal was unrealistic.  People have their own reasons for
getting hooked on Squeak (ask Richard O'Keefe, who recently said that
multimedia is "over his head"; his undeniably valuable contributions
to the community are in other areas).

Furthermore, for those who are primarily concerned with
Squeak-the-medium, the situation is not as bleak as you portray it.
If I create some cool thingamabob, SqueakMap makes it easier than
ever for others to install it.  The MCP will make it much easier
for those of us who didn't write Morphic to program in it.

Cool things are still happening.  Croquet is very very cool.  So is
Tweak, so are Traits and ClassBoxes, so is the work going on in Japan,
and so is the investigation into capability-based security.  I'm sure
that there are many other cool things that I am unaware of.  I'm 
just as excited about Squeak as ever.

> That's why I asked for vision, that's why I
> want that people look further than the (necessary) cleanup and
> infrastructure work, encourage people to do cool things, encourage them to
> be a place for fun and joy.

Do you have any concrete ideas about how the Guides can further these
aims better than, for example, you can through your work on Croquet?

> In some way it's funny that so many people have such a hard time
> understanding what I'm talking about (I can literally see you scratching
> your head about "what the hell does he want???" ;-). It means the community
> really has changed (much more than I dared to think) over the years and its
> interests have changed too. 

Not any more than one would expect.  When Squeak first got off the
ground, it attracted the attention of those who shared the goals of
its creators (eg: you, Andreas).  There aren't that many folks like
that around.  As word got around about this wonderful free Smalltalk,
inevitably the demographic shifted to be more like the larger
programmer population.  Many would be happy programming in C, Python,
or Java if they hadn't found something better.  I expect that you
would admit that Squeak is not yet ready for self-learning by
non-programmers, but it is these non-programmers who are in the best
position to provide the vision that you desire.  We just have to build
something that they can use, put the word out, and the rest will
follow.

That's enough for now,
Joshua

> If that's the case, so be it. Good luck with all
> the work you're doing (like I was saying, I find it important so this is
> meant honestly).
> 
> Shutting up now.
> 
> Bye,
>   - Andreas
>