> Squeak is a toy, and therefore it looks like a toy.
Aversion to

To be more precise, I'd say the Squeak Community uses
it that way in most cases.  Most people here just want
to try all kinds of stuff and don't care about the
GUI.  They use Squeak to experiment because the
environment allows you to rapidly develop/try/modify
whatever you do which is not the case with all
environments.

I'd love to see a decent UI in Squeak.  How would it
impact how you use Squeak?  It would have no impact at
all but it would definitely attract a new bunch of
developers that have issues with Squeak's look.

Personally, I do the same things in Dolphin Pro that I
do in Squeak.  It's just a bit more pleasant in
Dolphin since my "experiments" have a "more
professionnal" look than they have in Morphic.

Having a decent UI wouldn't take the fun out of
Squeak...  It would just give it more
"professionalism" or a more "this is serious stuff" to
it and I guess a lot more people would start using it
for commercial projects.

VisualWorks suffered from the same problem for
years...  All our clients had issues with the look and
feel of our product (it was on 2.5).  They were
totally pleased with the functionnalities and how easy
we could deliver them modifications and new
functionalities but the GUI really bogged them.  It
had that "not really a real Windows UI" kinda
perception that made them even consider other "nicer"
products that didn't even have a tenth of the
functionnalities we had.

But for most people (in the commercial world), the UI
is the first impression they have of your product and
when it looks like Morphic (i.e. really far from a
Windows XP look and feel), they don't even go further
and see what's "under the hood" only because "it looks
crappy" to them...

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the UI in
Squeak dones't make it a toy...  I can experiment as
much in VisualAge or Dolphin as in Squeak...  It's how
you use it that...

I can use my iPod for fun but if I use it to hit a
nail, does it suddenly become a hammer?

-----------------
Benoit St-Jean
Yahoo! Messenger: bstjean
A standpoint is an intellectual horizon of radius zero.
(Albert Einstein)