For developers who are thrown by the look and feel, have you thought of
hitting a Seaside app serving up the browser? Then you could hit the
repository with emacs or vi directly. (Never tried this for real work.)

I remember my first experience with Squeak. I was definitely turned off
by the look and feel. Squeak 1.18 looked like a MacSE with windows
dipped in Easter Egg dye. My work at the time involved IBM Smalltalk
which definitely looked more serious. But, my home machine at the time
was an anemic 486 that could run 1.18 in MVC just fine. After a time,
the Squeak look stopped bothering me and parts of it grew on me. As a
developer, owning every aspect of the look and feel appealed to me (even
if I rarely took advantage.

The main thing I missed was good fonts. Henryk's bluelook to me was the
answer, but it never got integrated. I always thought it looked
professional, but it never got integrated. I think bluelook appeared way
back when Squeak central was still running things. It didn't handle
colored text, which I imagine would have been a show stopper.

Your real question is why doesn't Squeak look better? I suppose because
the people in charge of the base distribution have other concerns that
they feel are more important.

Dan Shafer wrote:

> I think the problem here is that the audience I have in mind are  
> developers but who must: (a) feel some comfort level with the tool  
> they use; and (b) who are concerned that the unusual user experience  
> of the Squeak IDE presages such unusualness in their developed  
> applications. SO the line is not so nearly clean as you interpret or  
> as I may have mistakenly led you to believe.
>
> Dan
>
> On Jul 7, 2006, at 2:37 PM, Chris Muller wrote:
>
>> Your original question mentioned IDE's Dan:
>>
>>>>> almost toy-like user experience in the IDE? Is it the case that
>>>>
>>
>> therefore I thought the audience you were referring to were  developers.
>>  For developers I am less-tolerant of their whining about look (but  not
>> feel, because Nicolas Cellier's points are excellent).
>>
>> But since you have clarified you apparently are talking about
>> *end-users*, I'd like to clarify, I think, for end-users look is much
>> more important than for developers.
>>
>> But I doubt native/standard/whatever look alone will be enough  because,
>> as I mentioned, IBM's VisualAge Smalltalk had native widgets PLUS tons
>> of interfaces to major business systems (even CICS!) that no Smalltalk
>> will probably ever have again.
>>
>> I think Cees nailed it, its so hard to overcome the anti-marketing
>> forces.  IBM was selling their VA Java product for half the price of
>> their VA Smalltalk.  Its amazing VAST lasted as long as it did.  I'm
>> sure they were gratified (again) to sell the small interim-step in
>> technlology (VAJ) as a huge wave of revenue.  But I think they made a
>> big mistake, now where are they gonna go?
>>
>> Better looks will never hurt though..
>>
>>
>> --- Dan Shafer <dan at shafermedia.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Jul 7, 2006, at 12:50 PM, Chris Muller wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Why, after 30 years, does Squeak still appear to be a
>>>>
>>> non-standard,
>>>
>>>>> almost toy-like user experience in the IDE? Is it the case that
>>>>> changing that would be far too complex to undertake? Or is it that
>>>>> the community of Squeak users just isn't largely motivated to
>>>>
>>> worry
>>>
>>>>> about this subject? Or is the absence of an economic incentive the
>>>>> problem? Or IS there a problem?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 1.  What does that really mean, looks toy-like?  What's it gonna
>>>
>>> take,
>>>
>>>> please tell us?  A manly "gray metal" look like we've seen before
>>>
>>> or
>>>
>>>> some more rainbow gradients like we've seen before?
>>>
>>>
>>> I can see I touched a sore spot here. First, please remember I'm
>>> passing on reactions from others, not expressing my own views here.
>>> I'm trying to figure out how to make it possible for me to get
>>> projects and contracts using Squeak from people with pre-conceived
>>> ideas about what an application looks like.
>>>
>>> Short of true native platform widgets, I think it's safe to say that
>>> the vast, vast majority of computer users are accustomed to certain
>>> kinds of shapes for certain kinds of objects and that when we vary
>>> from those standards, we'd better have a really good reason for
>>> asking them to pay attention to our interface rather than to the task
>>> they are trying to accomplish. I don't know if that's "manly" gray
>>> metal or rainbow gradients or just round-cornered rectangles with
>>> default buttons flagged somehow. The point is that it is NOT the UI
>>> one finds in Squeak today.
>>>
>>>> 2.  What is THE "standard"?  Microsoft?  What, then, when Microsoft
>>>> changes its look again?  Are they then "non-standard" or their
>>>> followers?
>>>
>>>
>>> Again, I think it's less an issue of choosing a standard than it is
>>> of choosing a UI experience that maps to the user's established
>>> expectations.
>>>
>>>> 2b.  Do you remember this rubbish, "All windows programs look alike
>>>> therefore once you've learned one you've learned them all.."?
>>>
>>>
>>> Yeah, only I heard it said about Mac programs. Same rubbish, though.
>>>
>>>> 3.  Even if it can be "offically" labelled "toy like," what is
>>>
>>> wrong
>>>
>>>> with that?  Too wimpy-looking?  What's wrong with wimpy-looking as
>>>> long
>>>> as its easy and functional?
>>>
>>>
>>> Sorry to keep beating the dead horse here, but the issue is that it
>>> is toy-like *compared to user expectations* set up by other programs.
>>> I find the EToys UI refreshing. My potential clients and colleagues
>>> whom I wish to interest in Squeak just don't.
>>>
>>>> 4.  Speaking of wimpy, someone (not you) once suggested "Squeak"
>>>
>>> was a
>>>
>>>> wimpy-sounding name, what do you think of "KA-POW!"?
>>>>
>>> LOL. I think Squeak is a weird name for a programming language. But
>>> not weirder than C or Java or Ruby.
>>>
>>>>> Thanks for any wisdom you can share. This is one of the two big
>>>>> objections I *always* get when I recommend someone look at Squeak
>>>>
>>> as
>>>
>>>>> a possible solution to a problem for which it appears to me to be
>>>>> ideally suited linguistically and architecturally.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So I guess this group sets its priorities to building something, as
>>>> you
>>>> said, "ideally suited linguistically and architecturally".  They
>>>> haven't spent as much time playing endlessly with colors, shadows,
>>>> gradients, only to please the latest group of popularist
>>>> superficialites who'll be gone as soon as the next Wired article
>>>
>>> tells
>>>
>>>> them where they need to go next to be cool.  Whew, sorry to say
>>>
>>> that,
>>>
>>>> at least you have my honesty.
>>>>
>>> I am at least somewhat sympathetic to your thinking here, Chris. All
>>> I'm really trying to do is find answers that will satisfy and/or make
>>> sense to the great majority of people who've had their user
>>> experience expectations shaped by the market.
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
>