www.squeak.org finally updated

stéphane ducasse ducasse at iam.unibe.ch
Mon Jul 4 06:27:02 UTC 2005


On 4 juil. 05, at 7:17, Andreas Raab wrote:

> Hi Adrian -
>
> Yes, I can see why (given your customers) you might choose not to  
> mention Squeak or link to it. But I have two questions: From the  
> look of your site, it seems to me that most of what you would be  
> doing is related to Seaside anyway - why not instead use it as your  
> reference? (if you are using primarily Seaside it would seem the  
> more logical choice when it comes to technology reference and  
> clearly, it's website is catered more to the audience that you are  
> looking at) And secondly, do you think it's a good idea to make  
> what appeals to suisse bank managers the benchmark for including  
> stuff on the Squeak.org website? Like you are saying (and I  
> entirely agree) there are many things up there right now that will  
> not appeal to a suisse bank manager. But those things (at least up  
> until today) are part of Squeak as well, and I think they ought to  
> be represented on its website. Making any particular sub-group of  
> Squeak the exclusive focus of what should be presented at the web  
> site seems very unwise to me.

andreas this is not what adrian was seeing.
What do you gain playing the devil advocate.
Not realizing that the web site is bad even for attracting new guys  
wanting to play with squeak is doom.
But again may be this is warn to stay between us and have the power.

Squeak is a difficult product to market but at least we should try.
I will ask to some designers in the fall to propose some new webpage  
for squeak-brand and we will see.
Because may be squeak.org is dead anyway.


Stef

>
> Cheers,
>   - Andreas
>
> Adrian Lienhard wrote:
>
>> Hi
>> On Jul 3, 2005, at 1:57 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>> PS. And I find your claim about companies not mentioning  
>>>>> Squeak   "because of the website" very, very strange. If that  
>>>>> were true  I'm  not sure that those companies do understand  
>>>>> very much about  Squeak  and its strengths.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Sure tell that I'm lying if this is what you want to imply. You   
>>>> can  say to netStyle people that they are idiot too.
>>>> But this is what they are living daily. May be adrian will  
>>>> reply  on  this one?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> This would indeed be very interesting.
>>>
>> It's true, we do not show the Squeak website (and if they do not  
>> ask,  we just say that we use a free open-source Smalltalk) to  
>> potential  customers for one simple reason: it can give them a  
>> very simple  reason to shoot us... Let's imagine a bank evaluates  
>> our proposal and  others for some business critical application.  
>> If one guy there does  not like us because of whatever reason, he  
>> has an easy way to  argument against us since the website is the  
>> only thing a manager  will see about Squeak. If it does not look  
>> professional then this  definitely will raise questions.
>> I think, the new website looks much better compared to the old  
>> one.   From the business point of view, I'd even vote for a new  
>> logo.  Anyway, I know that there are other groups of users and  
>> there are  other guys that love the mouse etc. so I don't even  
>> think about  proposing it. I don't want to start arguing why the  
>> old web page is  bad (apart from the general look). But, just as  
>> an example: the  tutorials part of the documentation page (http:// 
>> www.squeak.org/ documentation/) has 5 dead out of 11 links; or,  
>> "Squeak and the  Internet" mentions that we have "a very basic  
>> telnet  client" (wow!!!), but there is not one word about Seaside!
>> Andreas, you say that maybe we do not understand the strengths of   
>> Squeak if we do not mention it because of the website. I don't  
>> think  that's why, but what is rather the case is that we fear  
>> that the  *customer* does not understand it which seams to be  
>> likely (how  should he from looking at that website? Do you really  
>> think, he  believes that Squeak is capable of managing his bank if  
>> he looks at  http://www.squeak.org/features/ ?).
>> I think that the same argument also holds in respect to potential  
>> new  developers. From the website one has the impression that  
>> Squeak is  dead and I guess that there are quite some people that  
>> do stop there.  Again, you can say, well, they do not understand  
>> its strengths. Yes,  but how should they if they do not get into  
>> it when they stop because  of the website?
>> It's just not enough to be good and cool today - one also has to  
>> sell  it. At least, if one of our goal is to attract new people to  
>> Squeak  (is that a goal?). As a side mark, a more modern look of  
>> Squeak would  be good as well. Not for me (I'm really used to it  
>> now) but for new  users.
>> So, an appealing website which is up to date and provides  
>> relevant  and interesting contents does not only serve for selling  
>> some  contracts but also, and that's important as well, to attract  
>> new  users, which, I think, has been neglected so far.
>> Adrian
>> ___________________
>> Adrian Lienhard
>> www.adrian-lienhard.ch
>> www.netstyle.ch
>>
>
>
>




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