=?ISO-8859-1?Q?st=E9phane_ducasse?= <ducasse at iam.unibe.ch> wrote:


> So now if you do not understand that VW is cool and that this is the 
> only important player in the field
> what can I say? I'm not here to convince you but realise that the fact 
> that IBM dropped Smalltalk is bad for us even if we have fun with morph 
> and sound and flashy toys we build the week-end and the night. Because 
> during the day a lot of squeakers do Java.
> 

Since when did IBM drop Smalltalk?  VAST is alive and well so far as I
know.  VW's product manager is more visible to people who read USENET,
but IBM is still around.

Also, there are several important players other than the two biggies. 
You can't just discount Dolphin and /MT and /X, each of which has their
niche.


I agree with everything else you said, however.  Community and play time
both matter a lot, and the NC version of VW helps on both prongs. 
Smalltalk is a fabulous tool for doing all the things people are using
Java for these days, and the reason it is used less is that it is less
well known.  The NC version is working to change this.

-Lex