Hi.

>At the language level we will all agree that it is an incredibly simple
>language.

Smalltalk is incredibly simple. Good axioms, hehe :).

>It does have an extensive class library but Java is getting there if
>anything Java is probably already becoming over engineered.
>And how long would it take to learn Microsofts MFC classes?

Yes, I agree they really... ahem...

>Within a month of being given Smalltalk training I was "productive"

The same happened to me, I was taught Smalltalk in 3 hours, within 3 weeks 
I was making classes and in 3 months I was very sure of what was I doing. At 
the moment though, I noticed that what I had to understand very well was much 
more than with Pascal and assembler, or the understanding really had to be 
deeper. Although I know it will require more work to learn any given language, 
I think that the effort required to do it is of inferior quality that the 
effort needed to learn Smalltalk. Or something like that... I can't find the 
proper way to say it.

>I'm sorry I do not think that the ST learning curve is really all that 
steep.

Hmm... I think that's very steep and also very short... the overall 
difficulty in terms of neuron time is not that much and in this I agree. But the 
effort has to be very good.

>The syntax is different but not a big deal if anything far more intuitive.

Syntax is the key. Perhaps there's what I want to say... coming from 
languages, one feels lost in Smalltalk because one doesn't know the magic words of 
languages. And now one has to make the syntax and words required to solve 
your problem, instead of looking up words that have to do with your problem.

You know, I feel that when I was using languages other than assembly 
language I spoke like Tarzan, like "bytes crunch"... and now I speak like "bytes 
crunchYourselvesPlease"...

Andres.