Squeak-related employment information sought

Paul McDonough paulm at 4thEstate.com
Mon Jan 24 22:43:39 UTC 2000


[warning:  cynical mode <on>]

----------
>From: agree at carltonfields.com
>To: tim at sumeru.stanford.edu, squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
>Subject: RE: Squeak-related employment information sought
>Date: Mon, Jan 24, 2000, 11:46 AM
>

> Perhaps we should look more closely at this issue.  Was the bigotry
> undifferentiated, or were specific objections noted to compare
> alternatives?  What were the objections?

-- I have no direct knowledge.  But substitute organization name(s) and/or
names of suggested alternatives in Craig/Tim's story, and yes, it's one I've
heard before.

Objection #1 (and in my mind the only valid one I've ever heard):  it is too
hard to find qualified Smalltalk programmers.
Objection #2:  Smalltalk is only good for banking and insurance and other
back-office applications.
Objection #3:  Smalltalk is slow.

>
> What would be answers to those objections?

-- if those be the objections, then the answers are:
#1:  you don't need very many.
#2:  that's the result of a historical legacy.  In the early 1990s when
Smalltalk made a brief mainstream move, Sundry Suits decided to pitch it as
The Replacement for COBOL in Your Back Office.  That's how it hit the trade
rags, then it quickly departed the trade rags, so those who make their
decisions based on "follow-the-herd", "do-what-rags-tell-me",
"cover-my-bum", etc. (i.e., unfortunately, nearly every responsible IT
manager), still think that Smalltalk is only used in the back office.  If
they could take the time to look, we all know they'd find ample evidence of
applicability to (in my *limited* personal experience):  tools development,
control systems engineering, genetic sequencing, and hospital pharmacology.
But I have had that discussion already, and I don't need to have it again -
they ain't listening.
#3:  slow?  Maybe.  Faster than Java?  Certainly.  So what were you planning
to use, by the way?

>  Do we care whether Squeak
> addresses them?
-- Squeak *does*, or can quickly be made to, address any reasonable concern
I've ever heard raised as a requirement for a development environment.  I
personally am extremely lucky in working for management whose main criterion
in selecting a tool is, "is it the best tool for the job", so to be brutally
honest, I no longer care about what Suits think of Smalltalk or Squeak.  If
they don't like it, let 'em choose their weapon, and we Squeakers will try
our utmost not to feel pangs of remorse for how little work we actually need
to do to knock their socks off!

Paul McDonough,
unable e'en now to resist the occasional temptation to Rant Religiously, and
speaking purely for myself not for my employer, nor anyone else except
possibly my cat.

>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: MIME :tim at sumeru.stanford.edu > Sent: Monday, January 24, 2000 11:56 AM
>> To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
>> Subject: Re: Squeak-related employment information sought
>> > > On Mon 24 Jan, garau at ar.ibm.com wrote:
>> > > > Craig,
>> > Could you tell us what were the reasons behind such decission?
>> > Were they technical o business reasons?
>> > It is kind of dissapointing to hear that a company stopped > using the best
>> > development software available. What happened??
>> Since I worked with Craig on the same project(s) and also > recently left
>> Interval, I can offer a perspective:
>> foolishness.
>> lack of understanding that Smalltalk is useful in many, many > situations.
>> bigotry (really - plenty of "you should use Director and c++")
>> change from a research place to a mainly-cable-tv apps > development place.
>> > -- On a clear disk you can seek forever...
>> Tim Rowledge:  rowledge at interval.com (w)  +1 (650) 842-6110 (w)
>>  tim at sumeru.stanford.edu (h)  <http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim>
>> > > >
> 





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