Göran,

Don't take my comment too personally. I just have a strange sense of humor
;-)

Having worked in the computer industry for so long, your comment just struck
me as an exemplary example of how programmers think about things and how
marketing types 'think' (fill in your own amazingly clever remarks
disparaging marketing types here). After observing people trying to bridge
the programming/marketing chasm in the wilds for so long, it's interesting
in this case to see how programmers try to market to each other.

Obviously I'm not against well formed HTML or good web sites or such, I was
just struck by the fact that people apparently look at HTML source code on a
web page and form any opinions about something totally unrelated because of
that. I think that's funny. They must have a tough time when they go
shopping on the web. "Let's see, I can buy that CD here for 13.99 but one of
their HTML tags was a little off. It's 14.17 over there but their page is
*perfect*. The guys over there must really know what's up in the music
retailing business".

You're one of the good guys, you don't need a defence against what I say,

Jim

----- Original Message -----
From: <goran.hultgren at bluefish.se>
To: <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 7:54 AM
Subject: Squeak UI and toolkit commentary: (was: Re: Who has no job? (was
Re: O'Reilly Squeak book?))


> I finally found the time to read through this post and it was all good.
> I heartily agree. Just a small "defensive" note, though:
>
> "Jim Benson" <jb at speed.net> wrote:
> [SNIP]
> > I've had quite a few laughs the last few days reading the list with all
of
> > the different suggestions to make Squeak more mainstream. These
suggestions
> > have ranged from let's write another book, let's have more
documentation,
> > let's have a better website (including my favorite comment of the entire
> > last year, something along the lines of "Let's make sure the HTML on the
web
> > site is good (well formed) so that people will take us seriously").
>
> I think that was my post that said something similar to that.
>
> > I'm not against any of those things, most all are obviously good ideas.
I
> > think there are different issues here. My first question would be, "Why
do
> > you care what others think about Squeak?". I think this time would be
better
> > off spent making Squeak better for the people who use Squeak. What does
> > "mainstream" mean -- and why in the world would you devote any energy to
> > getting it?
>
> And my defense here is that I don't really want to attract users.
> Currently Squeak is a wild place to live in and regular *users* don't
> have that much of a chance to find it appealing.
>
> I want to attract *developers* (and sure, they are also users in a sense
> of course) and being a developer I think that other developers might
> react as I do. If I visit a site built by other developers touting a
> development tool my first impression of the site does affect my thoughts
> about the tool. I am aware that this may fool me, but it's the way
> people work.
>
> So... my idea was that if we do want to attract other developers then
> things like "first impression" actually counts. And for a lot of
> developers (especially people working with the web) things like proper
> HTML is a "touchy" subject.
>
> regards, Göran
>
>