>> > Or, at the contrary: let them experience a big shock that wipes out their
>> > preconceived ideas about programming. Trying to help them avoid that shock
>> > may actually make thing more difficult for them in the long term. They have
>> > to grok that Smalltalk *is* different.
>>
>> 30 years of big shock have proved not to work.
>
> Um, maybe I'm just missing something, but which part didn't work? ;-)
> Dave

How about the part where Smalltalk gets enough mainstream acceptance
that it's used as much as Python or Ruby and thousands of developers
are writing libraries for it instead of a small handful?  How about
enough that when you tell someone you're using Smalltalk that they've
actually have heard of it and know what you're talking about?  Let's
not act like there isn't room for improvement and that we wouldn't
benefit from a larger community of fresh blood to take the place of
the old gray bearded Smalltalker's before they all die.

Ramon Leon
http://onsmalltalk.com