"Bruce O'Neel" edoneel@sdf.lonestar.org wrote:

Thanks very much!

cheers

bruce

Oh, and that reminded me - I also changed your listed email (at the bottom) to edoneel@sdf.lonestar.org on the download page, just shout if we should change that to something else. We could of course create email aliases like "webmaster@squeak.org" and "downloads@squeak.org" etc.

regards, Göran

Hi,

No, this is just a mistake on my part. I'll fix this.

cheers

bruce

On Tue, Jun 28, 2005 at 12:12:07PM -0400, Doug Way wrote:

Kind of a side issue I noticed while testing the download page...

The standard "Full" download for Windows (ftp://ftp.squeak.org/3.8/win/Squeak3.8-current-win-full.zip) actually includes both the Full image/changes files *and* the Basic image/changes files, which makes the .zip file considerably larger.

I guess there might be some advantages to doing this, but we haven't done it in the past, and I'm not sure it's really needed... we could just have a separate Squeak3.8-current-win-basic.zip download for those that want Basic. (Sorry if I missed some discussion on this.)

• Doug

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 11:04:33 +0200 , goran@krampe.se said:

...

Oh, and by the way - the reason I only did the "smallest changes" is of course that we have a new website brewing - don't want to spend to much time on the old pages. But still, if there are any things we should fix

• just post and we will fix it.

regards, G?ran

goran@krampe.se wrote:

...

Hi folks!

Just edited www.squeak.org a bit (fixed some stuff that simply is outdated) and most importantly went over the download page with the 3.8 release and some new links (Master unix and win32 site for example).

Also, Tim, the first link on your master site below is barfed:

http://www.rowledge.org/tim/squeak/RISCOSSqueak.html

People, please look over the download page and report if there are any things that are wrong.

Also modified the links so that the primary download URLs are "ftp://ftp.squeak.org/...". And yeah, if anyone wants to set up a mirror then check out:

ftp://ftp.squeak.org/MIRRORING.txt

..and report back if you actually do set one up (so that we can link to it).

regards, G?ran

One other thing I noticed. Last night I downloaded Squeak 3.8 Full (Squeak3.8-current-MacOS-full.dmg) for Mac OSX from www.squeak.org. When I ran it, I discovered that I could not load updates, connect to Squeakmap, connect to any Monticello repository, from within the VM. At first, I thought it was my machine's connectivity, but then...

I launched another 3.8 VM I had downloaded before (I forgot where I got it from) (Squeak3.8-6665-MacOS-Full.dmg). This one works like a charm.

Any clues? Hope this helps the maintainers. Sorry I can't be more specific but my overall knowledge is not there for me to point you into what needs to be looked at.

Thanks, Daniel

On Jul 1, 2005, at 10:12 PM, Doug Way wrote:

http://www.squeak.org is looking good. Nice work, everyone!

Just noticed something "interesting", though... http:// www.squeak.org is properly pointing to 3.8 as the current version, but http://squeak.org is still pointing to 3.7! And squeak.org is missing the other recent edits such as the ftp.squeak.org references.

• Doug

On Jun 28, 2005, at 4:58 AM, goran@krampe.se wrote:

...

Hi folks!

Just edited www.squeak.org a bit (fixed some stuff that simply is outdated) and most importantly went over the download page with the 3.8 release and some new links (Master unix and win32 site for example).

Also, Tim, the first link on your master site below is barfed:

http://www.rowledge.org/tim/squeak/RISCOSSqueak.html

People, please look over the download page and report if there are any things that are wrong.

Also modified the links so that the primary download URLs are "ftp://ftp.squeak.org/...". And yeah, if anyone wants to set up a mirror then check out:

ftp://ftp.squeak.org/MIRRORING.txt

..and report back if you actually do set one up (so that we can link to it).

regards, Göran

Daniel Salama dsalama@user.net Voice: (954) 655-8051 Fax : (954) 252-3988

------------------------

This e-mail contains information which may be confidential and privileged. Unless you are the addressee (or authorized to receive for the addressee), you may not use, copy or disclose to anyone the message or any information contained in the message. If you have received the message in error, please advise the sender by reply e-mail to dsalama@user.net or tel. +1-954-655-8051 and delete the material from any computer.

http://www.squeak.org is looking good. Nice work, everyone!

Just noticed something "interesting", though... http://www.squeak.org is properly pointing to 3.8 as the current version, but http://squeak.org is still pointing to 3.7! And squeak.org is missing the other recent edits such as the ftp.squeak.org references.

• Doug

I see no reason why that should be the case. I've checked the server setup and checked it from my end and I get the same site for both squeak.org and www.squeak.org. Either you have a caching issue or a DNS problem. Can you check what IPs you see for both hostnames. They should both be the same and be 80.68.89.134.

Ken

Hi guys

I'm wondering why we are still pointing to this crappy web site and not the new one? http://www.squeak.org:7777/

Stef

On 2 juil. 05, at 4:12, Doug Way wrote:

http://www.squeak.org is looking good. Nice work, everyone!

Just noticed something "interesting", though... http:// www.squeak.org is properly pointing to 3.8 as the current version, but http://squeak.org is still pointing to 3.7! And squeak.org is missing the other recent edits such as the ftp.squeak.org references.

• Doug

On Jun 28, 2005, at 4:58 AM, goran@krampe.se wrote:

...

Hi folks!

Just edited www.squeak.org a bit (fixed some stuff that simply is outdated) and most importantly went over the download page with the 3.8 release and some new links (Master unix and win32 site for example).

Also, Tim, the first link on your master site below is barfed:

http://www.rowledge.org/tim/squeak/RISCOSSqueak.html

People, please look over the download page and report if there are any things that are wrong.

Also modified the links so that the primary download URLs are "ftp://ftp.squeak.org/...". And yeah, if anyone wants to set up a mirror then check out:

ftp://ftp.squeak.org/MIRRORING.txt

..and report back if you actually do set one up (so that we can link to it).

regards, Göran

The visitors perspective looks similar, a visitor of squeak.org wants to be informed about Squeak and not be sent away.

Regarding the style I have to say that I like the old site much more. It has an idiosyncratic charm, the new site looks like thousands of other sites. Even the font and font size of old "crappy" squeak.org is more inviting for a further read.

Excellent. We are all really happy to know that!!! ....But may be you are the only one. I'm not saying that the new one is the one I expected but some people do not dare to say that they are doing Squeak because people laugth at them. I know companies that are fighting to be able to use Squeak and Smalltalk and they do not mention Squeak because of the web-site and we have to help these people.

...But may be you do nothing really serious with Squeak to have these kind of problems. I'm not sure that this is a chance.

My goal is to help people willing to build any kind of software artefacts in Squeak to be proud of it and have less barriers and the web site is a huge one.

Stef

My goal is to help people willing to build any kind of software artefacts in Squeak to be proud of it and have less barriers and the web site is a huge one.

That's a worthwhile goal but no reason to call the existing website "crappy" in particular given that it's look is visually more appealing and has better and even more relevant information than the new website.

Regards, - Andreas

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.

Hi -

Crappy was a bit strong but this is clearly outdated. But now if we want to give the impression that squeak is a toy, we meet the objective. For the contents this is strange since we copied the information of the current web site. At least before I left the website team

Some of the most significant portions of the original website are definitely missing, including: * downloads - the new website points to image, changes, and VM independently, the old one to a single download per platform which is vastly advantageous * features and what is Squeak all about - seems like this has been condensed into a single paragraph under "about" where we used to have lots of stuff and pictures illustrating it * documentation - the old site had lots of pointers, the new one just three or four To me, these are the most relevant aspects for a newbie to look at and I find the old web site dramatically better suited than the new one to address these issues.

So on one hand you tell me that the new web site is better (even if some screenshots are missing) and now that this is not the case. What kind of game are you playing andreas? may be you goal is not that the community grows after all....I find that curious.

I'm playing no games - I'm saying that I agree with the goal of giving people access to the web site, make it possible to change it more rapidly and with less pain. I think it's a good start but I also think it's still a shot or two away from the information that it needs and that the old one provided. And, naturally, this is my personal opinion, and others are perfectly free to disagree or ignore it.

...

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.

But I get such as kind of answer from you I'm really wondering what kind of game you are playing.

I'm just wondering what kind of company would not mention Squeak because of its current website and *would* do that with the new website.

Cheers, - Andreas

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

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

Hi, I want to jump into the discussion because IMHO it’s a very important one. I see the topic “what is the best web site” in a wider range. For me it’s about the potential of Squeak as a development platform in the *commercial* area. I guess all of the Squeak guys here on the list want to see a growth of Squeak (also) in the business domain. And my posting only reflects the business view.

I will tell you my impression as a person who isn’t related to the Squeak community. But I’ve used Smalltalk heavily in the nineties for big commercial projects and therefore I *really* know the power of Smalltalk – nobody needs to convince me.

A week ago I was looking for a agile environment to wrap a RDBS and make some forms to query and manipulate the tables. When googling around I found links about GLORP, Seaside and Squeak. This was my starting point for digging deeper into the topic “Squeak”. I’ve tried to get an impression for myself whether Squeak is something my company can use for business. I wouldn’t have invest all this time if I did not know Smalltalk from the past. And indeed the current web site (www.squeak.org) wouldn’t have convinced me to invest more time in reading it. But I’ve got curious about my “old love Smalltalk”.

So let me tell you, what I’ve did. When I’m investigating a new product or technology I try to find answers to two aspects. 1) How stable and productive is the product/technology *now* and 2) how it will develop in the *future*. 2) is mainly related how big the community behind a product is and also (!) how the community reacts and how the community is organized (IMO very important in the Open Source area).

Ok, long talk for an introduction I will tell you now honestly my personal impression in some notes to my points 1) and 2):

- I was impressed what Squeak can deliver *today* for some of my business needs. But there is no central entry point (or I haven’t found) where I could find all the answers to my questions on the web. Probably somebody else would have give up searching soon (or immediately).

- From the central web site and Wiki I’ve got the impression that Squeak is a Smalltalk environment related in the educational area. I’m missing a clear statement for using it in business.

- Whether somebody likes or dislikes a web site is of course a subjective feeling but I agree 100% with Stef and Adrian that the current web site prevents to see Squeak as an environment for commercial purpose. Indeed I wouldn’t tell my potential customers that it’s Squeak that powers his new application but say it’s Smalltalk (of course this depends to the kind of customers).

I’ve got the impression that Squeak in the business domain is driven by a small circle of enthusiastic individualists. I’ve also recognized some companies are using it for business. And there are some Universities that teach and make fancy things. But from what I’ve seen at the first view I have *not* got the impression there is or will be much growth. Squeak is in a niche and it will stay there. On the other hand when I consider the benefits of Smalltalk and take into account all the free packages that are available *today* for Squeak I see a high potential! (Again: I’m only talking about the aspect “Squeak as a commercial development platform", what for me means people can make revenue with it.).

I believe here is a big mismatch. The question is how to fix it. The web site of Squeak is the entrance into the Squeak world. It’s Squeak’s business card. I would argue this business card doesn’t fit to the business needs (again I only focusing the topic “using Squeak for commercial development”). I would like to see a site that is totally focused on that topic (e.g. squeak4business.org). Here I want to get all my answers. Such a site would be a first step. This doesn’t mean that Squeak has to become commercial driven. But you have to give the new Squeak applicants in the business area a single consistent view and don’t irritate them with a pink bunny.

To achieve this you need some key people that take the leadership and push the growth of Squeak in the business domain. Nothing comes from alone! You need some common goals, mile stones, etc. My company is using Plone and IMO the Plone people have managed to install such an environment to grow their business. Look at the site www.plone.org and you will get an impression what I mean.

For me the question of Squeak’s web site is only one aspect (Btw, I also would argue that the new one is better suited for business needs). The real question for me is, whether you - as the Squeak community - are willing to push the usage of Squeak in the business domain. If you answer with a “yes” then you should discuss the question, how to achieve this…

Regards, Franz Josef

On Jul 4, 2005, at 4:14 PM, David T. Lewis wrote:

In my opinion it would be very bad for Squeak to be seen as a competitor to the commercial systems, and very good for Squeak if the commercial systems grow in credibility thanks to the positive contributions of the Squeak community.

I agree that it's important to have a healthy market for commercial Smalltalk systems, but why is it bad for Squeak to be seen as a competitor in that arena? Squeak can provide some things - like an attractive price point and protection from vendor lock-in - that the commercial vendors cannot. For many of my clients, the choice was between Squeak and Ruby or Python, and if I had said "sorry, for commercial work you should be using VW", they simply wouldn't be using Smalltalk.

I don't think there's any danger of Squeak eroding Cincom's market share. The parts of the market that need the one are too different from the parts that need the other. As "competitors" I think they largely serve to grow the total Smalltalk market, which is good for everybody.

Avi

--- In squeak@yahoogroups.com, Cees De Groot <cdegroot@g...> wrote:

On 7/4/05, Avi Bryant <avi.bryant@g...> wrote:

...

I don't think there's any danger of Squeak eroding Cincom's market share.

Actually, I think there is. But that danger is Cincom's problem, not

ours.

We consider Squeak to be a positive good, both for the Smalltalk community and for Cincom's growth. We have more than one customer that started with Squeak, and then migrated to our product - mostly out of a desire to have ready access to support.

Thus far, there's been a very good interchange of ideas and code between Squeak and Cincom's VisualWorks, and I think that helps everyone.

James Robertson Cincom Smalltalk Product Manager http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView

Le 2005/07/04, John Pfersich jp1660@att.net écrivait :

I biggest problem that I see with the Smalltalk is the apparent lack

of

Smalltalk "programmers", not the competition between the various

Smalltalks.

HI agree here. Smalltalk is a 'Thing of the past' for lots a new programmers, and this is enforced by the fact that few people use it or know it except as the 'glory mother ship' of the OO way....

It is really ' un défi' to propose to do something with Squeak or any Smalltalk because the first question you'll have to answer is 'where I find programmers' and the second is 'where is the support or the expert if we need one'. At least in Québec it is the problem.

David T. Lewis schrieb:

On Mon, Jul 04, 2005 at 08:50:32AM +0200, Franz Josef Konrad wrote:

...

• I was impressed what Squeak can deliver *today* for some of my

business needs. But there is no central entry point (or I haven’t found) where I could find all the answers to my questions on the web. Probably somebody else would have give up searching soon (or immediately).

Regardless of one's point of view regarding Squeak for commercial purposes, I think it's a good thing to support the commercial Smalltalks.

100% agree.

For example, a Seaside business application can be

delivered on either VisualWorks or Squeak. It takes nothing away from Squeak at all if you recommend VisualWorks for a project like this, and you can of course refer to the very professional-looking Cincom web site.

In my opinion it would be very bad for Squeak to be seen as a competitor to the commercial systems, and very good for Squeak if the commercial systems grow in credibility thanks to the positive contributions of the Squeak community.

Isn't this a hen egg problem? What's easier to achieve? Growing Squeak or growing the commercial Smalltalk systems first?

Dave

I don't see Squeak as a competitor to the commercial Smalltalk systems. I want to see low barriers for people to use Smalltalk doing business. And with a free product like Squeak you have an attractive choice.

If it is possible to grow the the number of people who use Squeak it will IMO automatically raise the number of people who will use a commercial Smalltalk systems. If you believe this isn't possible then of course you will have a cannibalism effect that Squeak takes market share from the commercial systems. But perhaps I'm too optimistic?!

Dave, so would you argue not to use Squeak for business projects? Using a commercial Smalltalk system instead?

regadrs, Franz Josef

At 10:14 AM 7/4/2005, David T. Lewis wrote:

In my opinion it would be very bad for Squeak to be seen as a competitor to the commercial systems, and very good for Squeak if the commercial systems grow in credibility thanks to the positive contributions of the Squeak community.

I don't think competition is necessarily a bad thing. Squeak, and other commercial Smalltalks, naturally compete with Cincom Smalltalk, as well as with each other. In that sense they're competitors. But they also compete with all other development possibilities out there, which is a much larger space. In that space, they help and complement each other, by growing overall Smalltalk usage. Even within the purely Smalltalk space, competition helps force the others to always improve.

It's possible to have destructive competition, and I think that's something to be avoided. The metaphor I like to use is a couple of people stuck in a lifeboat, and spending all their time hitting each other with the oars instead of rowing. But competition as far as who can row the fastest only benefits everyone.

Avi made a point about market share, but market share is not really the important metric. Cincom would, I expect, be delighted to have a smaller market share of a larger market, and I would expect that to be an normal consequence of a growing market.

Note: I work for, but in no way speak for, Cincom.

-- Alan Knight [|], Cincom Smalltalk Development knight@acm.org aknight@cincom.com http://www.cincom.com/smalltalk

"The Static Typing Philosophy: Make it fast. Make it right. Make it run." - Niall Ross

On Jul 4, 2005, at 2:40 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:

In a way I am but only because you made a major point of a company not linking to or mentioning Squeak.org because of a) the general look of the site and b) the content on the site. While a) might be fixable for most of the audience b) certainly isn't.

Andreas,

I agree with you in general, but I don't think that (b) isn't fixable - or at least, I would claim that it currently needs fixing. Look at the very first sentence on the current squeak.org: "With the Squeak programming system, we have made some delightful and powerful educational applets. " For someone coming to Squeak looking to use it for business, that will be the first sentence and quite possibly the last they read - not because there's anything wrong with educational applets (there's everything right with them, in fact), but because that person will assume that this tool is not aimed at them and go elsewhere.

I think it's just an accident of presentation, but that paragraph about Squeakland ends up being the defining description on the squeak.org home page because of its placement. It doesn't surprise me at all that netstyle didn't want to link to that. Move it or downplay it or remove it, and you'll remove about half the reservations I would have about linking to squeak.org.

For the other half:

...

Because may be squeak.org is dead anyway.

Only once we start ignoring the contents for the looks of the site.

The contents have been ignored, apparently, for about 5 years: the "Where is Squeak Headed" section claims to be "coming soon" and offers "Entering 2000" as the latest material. Anyone would think that Squeak has been stagnant or abandoned since the days of superbowl ads for online petfood... we need to fix this if we're going to have any credibility.

By deciding what we choose to present on the website we will attract a certain audience. Choosing a purely business oriented presentation will certainly attract the business kind of guy and (almost) certainly alienate the media/fun/education kind of visitor. And quite possibly vice versa and that's the essence of the question: Should we go broad, and risk that some companies don't link to/mention Squeak.org because they feel it's too risky or should we go narrow, catering to some particular subgroup (which doesn't have to be business) instead? You seemed to make a point of that the website should be done in a way that some companies link to it - I just called this into question since I think the website of the Squeak.org community needs to be broader than that.

OTOH, a project (such as Seaside) might provide their own presentation and I think it's perfectly fine for a particular entity (company or otherwise) to link to that project instead of Squeak. This is commonplace in many other communities and environments and I don't see why Squeak.org would have to subsume all of these individual projects.

The bottom line here is that I think we shouldn't be scared of some company/project saying "I'll rather link to Seaside/wxSqueak instead of Squeak.org because it has a more business-oriented look and feel" I think that's *good* since it allows Squeak.org to remain relatively broadly focused.

Yes, I agree. The apache.org site is a good example here: there's almost nothing on the top-level site, and everyone always links to one of the (many) project sites. One thing that makes this feel a little more cohesive is that they are all something.apache.org. I don't know if that's a can of worms we want to open, but in theory I can see having a very simple, general www.squeak.org with tweak.squeak.org, wx.squeak.org, and so on below it serving individual communities.

At any rate, I see no problem with netstyle & co linking to seaside.st instead of to squeak.org. We could, for example, put download links to Squeak VMs on that site too (there's already an image download) so that someone that was only interested in using Seaside could get everything they need from there. But if we go that route, one thing we do need is prominent links from squeak.org to all of the various sub-community sites, so that if someone stumbles upon squeak.org through some other means they can find their way to the right place.

Avi

PS - in this general vein, I think it's really unfortunate how common it is for people mentioning Smalltalk to link to smalltalk.org, which is more of a personal site than a community one; and conversely, that there's no particular Smalltalk site that *is* worthwhile to link to. www.whysmalltalk.com is the best I know of; do others have better suggestions?

Hi Avi -

I agree with you in general, but I don't think that (b) isn't fixable - or at least, I would claim that it currently needs fixing. Look at the very first sentence on the current squeak.org: "With the Squeak programming system, we have made some delightful and powerful educational applets. " For someone coming to Squeak looking to use it for business, that will be the first sentence and quite possibly the last they read - not because there's anything wrong with educational applets (there's everything right with them, in fact), but because that person will assume that this tool is not aimed at them and go elsewhere.

I agree. And please understand me correctly - I am not saying that Squeak.org doesn't need updating. I'm saying the contrary, I'm saying we need up-to-date, compelling content for the new site. But I'm also saying that the content that's up on the new site *right now* is not as good as what's up on Squeak.org *right now*. And the discussion about how "ugly", "crappy" or outright "bad" the current website is seems to be exclusively focused on the "childish look" rather than anything that's content related.

For the other half:

...

...

Because may be squeak.org is dead anyway.

Only once we start ignoring the contents for the looks of the site.

The contents have been ignored, apparently, for about 5 years: the "Where is Squeak Headed" section claims to be "coming soon" and offers "Entering 2000" as the latest material. Anyone would think that Squeak has been stagnant or abandoned since the days of superbowl ads for online petfood... we need to fix this if we're going to have any credibility.

Precisely! *That* is the stuff we need to be looking at and argue about.

Cheers, - Andreas

I agree with this - the problem of out of date information is huge. Dead links look really bad, to any audience. The current squeak.org site is very slanted towards Squeakland type work. I think this was quite reasonable at a time when that was the main active project in Squeak, but things have changed.

Obviously, different projects will have their own sites, and its worth discussing how to provide enough visibility to them from the main page. abcde.squeak.org might also be a good idea. Another thing - I think its worth considering moving all the abcde.sqf.org to abcde.squeak.org, or else to *have* a squeak foundation. And how about moving minnow to at least seem to be at squeak.org?

We have a serious problem of fragmentation, even within things that more or less revolve around squeak-dev.

Another thing - I noticed that the existing squeak.org, and what I am hearing proposed for the new site, presents Squeak mainly through the cool things being done with it.

When I look at python.org, I see that they completely focus on Python itself and its developers, not mentioning its coolest applications. I don't think this is really appropriate for squeak, because I do feel the squeak community shares more than a language - we share at least the feeling that Squeak, as a language, base of code, and environment, allow us to do really cool things.

What we do with squeak is certainly part of the heart of the matter. But I think we also should present all the strengths of Squeak for a developer - Mature refactoring and testing tools, advanced code management (this is becoming a hot topic now, due to the linux kernel no longer working with the proprietary BitKeeper), .changes file (yeah, laugh, some people working in funny environments still can't see previous versions of methods), ways to interoperate with other environments (XML, OSProcess, .net bridge, FFI, plugins, wxSqueak), cutting edge frameworks like Seaside, Croquet and its free documentation.

Maybe each of those should have its own project, but if we care for developers to be able to get in a glance all the good reasons for them to join, that content needs to be in the new squeak.org, front and center.

netstyle should be able to link at seaside.st first, but they should also have a link for "and what is that built on", and the other side of that link can, and should, be impressive.

Daniel PS - I can't see (or contribute to) squeak.org:7777 due to a stupid firewall issue. Any chance to alias it through some http port?

Avi Bryant wrote:

On Jul 4, 2005, at 2:40 PM, Andreas Raab wrote:

...

In a way I am but only because you made a major point of a company not linking to or mentioning Squeak.org because of a) the general look of the site and b) the content on the site. While a) might be fixable for most of the audience b) certainly isn't.

Andreas,

I agree with you in general, but I don't think that (b) isn't fixable - or at least, I would claim that it currently needs fixing. Look at the very first sentence on the current squeak.org: "With the Squeak programming system, we have made some delightful and powerful educational applets. " For someone coming to Squeak looking to use it for business, that will be the first sentence and quite possibly the last they read - not because there's anything wrong with educational applets (there's everything right with them, in fact), but because that person will assume that this tool is not aimed at them and go elsewhere.

I think it's just an accident of presentation, but that paragraph about Squeakland ends up being the defining description on the squeak.org home page because of its placement. It doesn't surprise me at all that netstyle didn't want to link to that. Move it or downplay it or remove it, and you'll remove about half the reservations I would have about linking to squeak.org.

For the other half:

...

...

Because may be squeak.org is dead anyway.

Only once we start ignoring the contents for the looks of the site.

The contents have been ignored, apparently, for about 5 years: the "Where is Squeak Headed" section claims to be "coming soon" and offers "Entering 2000" as the latest material. Anyone would think that Squeak has been stagnant or abandoned since the days of superbowl ads for online petfood... we need to fix this if we're going to have any credibility.

...

By deciding what we choose to present on the website we will attract a certain audience. Choosing a purely business oriented presentation will certainly attract the business kind of guy and (almost) certainly alienate the media/fun/education kind of visitor. And quite possibly vice versa and that's the essence of the question: Should we go broad, and risk that some companies don't link to/mention Squeak.org because they feel it's too risky or should we go narrow, catering to some particular subgroup (which doesn't have to be business) instead? You seemed to make a point of that the website should be done in a way that some companies link to it - I just called this into question since I think the website of the Squeak.org community needs to be broader than that.

OTOH, a project (such as Seaside) might provide their own presentation and I think it's perfectly fine for a particular entity (company or otherwise) to link to that project instead of Squeak. This is commonplace in many other communities and environments and I don't see why Squeak.org would have to subsume all of these individual projects.

The bottom line here is that I think we shouldn't be scared of some company/project saying "I'll rather link to Seaside/wxSqueak instead of Squeak.org because it has a more business-oriented look and feel" I think that's *good* since it allows Squeak.org to remain relatively broadly focused.

Yes, I agree. The apache.org site is a good example here: there's almost nothing on the top-level site, and everyone always links to one of the (many) project sites. One thing that makes this feel a little more cohesive is that they are all something.apache.org. I don't know if that's a can of worms we want to open, but in theory I can see having a very simple, general www.squeak.org with tweak.squeak.org, wx.squeak.org, and so on below it serving individual communities.

At any rate, I see no problem with netstyle & co linking to seaside.st instead of to squeak.org. We could, for example, put download links to Squeak VMs on that site too (there's already an image download) so that someone that was only interested in using Seaside could get everything they need from there. But if we go that route, one thing we do need is prominent links from squeak.org to all of the various sub-community sites, so that if someone stumbles upon squeak.org through some other means they can find their way to the right place.

Avi

PS - in this general vein, I think it's really unfortunate how common it is for people mentioning Smalltalk to link to smalltalk.org, which is more of a personal site than a community one; and conversely, that there's no particular Smalltalk site that *is* worthwhile to link to. www.whysmalltalk.com is the best I know of; do others have better suggestions?

On Jul 4, 2005, at 9:43 PM, Tim Rowledge wrote:

Avi Bryant said:

...

one of the (many) project sites. One thing that makes this feel a little more cohesive is that they are all something.apache.org. I don't know if that's a can of worms we want to open, but in theory I can see having a very simple, general www.squeak.org with tweak.squeak.org, wx.squeak.org, and so on below it serving individual communities.

This sounds very sensible to me. Can I assume that it is possible to make (for example) seaside.squeak.org point directly to seaside.st ?

+1000 for this ideas.

Cheers,

Markus

On Jul 4, 2005, at 7:18 AM, Avi Bryant wrote:

Yes, I agree. The apache.org site is a good example here: there's almost nothing on the top-level site, and everyone always links to one of the (many) project sites. One thing that makes this feel a little more cohesive is that they are all something.apache.org. I don't know if that's a can of worms we want to open, but in theory I can see having a very simple, general www.squeak.org with tweak.squeak.org, wx.squeak.org, and so on below it serving individual communities.

And then on the main squeak.org site, we do aggregation as new articles of the distributed sites. And don't forget SqueakLand and Croquet pointers as well. Kind of a SqueakDot site as the root. Lots of activity, but all of it distributed, because in truth, that's how we all operate anyway.

My 2 cents,

Brian

On Tue, 2005-07-05 at 12:31 -0500, Mark P. McCahill wrote:

On the new www.squeak.org site, this page

 http://www.squeak.org/features/speech.html

has a dead link to the Klatt speech synthesis stuff on page that no longer exists at this location: http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/1112.html

I think this should point to http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/1112 instead.

Fixed.

...and in looking for someone to report this to, I realized that there is no apparent web master for the site. We might want one, so that there is a clear way to report trouble.

Let's not forget that these changes are resulting from a desire to distribute duties such as this among the community as much as possible. So sending a message to the list is actually fine although providing a more specific subject would have made it less likely that this request would have been missed.

For changes to the 'old' site you can do worse than sending an email to the 'administrators' of the system who have the ready access to make such changes. You can do that by sending an email to box-admins@discuss.squeakfoundation.org which is a mailing list but open to submissions by all.

As far as the new site goes they also have a list website@discuss.squeakfoundation.org and I would recommend that if they have not already done so that they open up their list to submissions by non-subscribers so that support requests can be handled by the team as a whole. Alternatively they might consider setting up a seperate 'support' list that is open to all submissions.

Ken

Andreas Raab schrieb:

Some of the most significant portions of the original website are definitely missing, including:

• downloads - the new website points to image, changes, and VM

independently, the old one to a single download per platform which is vastly advantageous

The download box on the right side of the new site provides one-click single download links for major platforms. That's what the old site had to offer, which had only links to other websites for unix, Acorn and WinCE. You'll find separate links to 3.8 images, VMs etc also on the old donwload page. There is no separate section for change files on the new website.

Ciao Alex

Yes, I agree about the font size. What I wanted to say is that the new site has a too small font. I don't like Times New Roman myself, but displayed with a bigger size it just beats better fonts of a smaller size. In my opinion programmers and designers often are only accustomed to use small fonts for their product and their development tools, because they have the problem to utilize space.

I believe users prefer bigger fonts and the "penetration depth" of many websites could be improved simply with increasing default font sizes. For that matter this holds true for newcomers to Squeak for the Squeak system itself.

Regards, Martin

John Pfersich wrote:

...

Regarding the style I have to say that I like the old site much more. It has an idiosyncratic charm, the new site looks like thousands of other sites. Even the font and font size of old "crappy" squeak.org is more inviting for a further read.

The old (current) site uses Times New Roman as a default font. TNR is a retched, hard to read font that was designed to cram as much information in as small a space as possible (for the New York Times newspaper), something you needn't worry about of a web page.

I agree that new site's font defaults of Verdana ( boring), Arial (even worse), and Helvetica are almost as bad as using Comic Sans. How about a readable serif font?

And by the way, specifying font sizes in pixels is just plain bogus, it's too small for all other platforms than Windoze, especially when using screen sizes greater than 800x600.