> Since when did IBM drop Smalltalk?  VAST is alive and well so far as I
> know.  VW's product manager is more visible to people who read USENET,
> but IBM is still around.

They did not dropped it.  It will stay around in a similar fashion than 
all the languages
they used in the past. But we know that the money goes into eclipse 
websphere and the rest.

> Also, there are several important players other than the two biggies.
> You can't just discount Dolphin and /MT and /X, each of which has their
> niche.

Dolphin indeed succeeded to create an active community and is a really 
good environment on PC. but MT is basically only used by its creator. 
For Smalltalk/X I do not know if there is an active community which I 
would love because it deserves it. But right now there is no mac 
version :(.

> I agree with everything else you said, however.  Community and play 
> time
> both matter a lot, and the NC version of VW helps on both prongs.
> Smalltalk is a fabulous tool for doing all the things people are using
> Java for these days, and the reason it is used less is that it is less
> well known.  The NC version is working to change this.

Exact

Stef