David,

Welcome aboard.  You are not completely wrong; you are also not
completely correct.

I agree that growing Smalltalk's user base would be a wonderful goal.  I
also suspect it is not realistic, nor is it essential to Smalltalk's
future success.  Case in point: YOU found it; others will too.  Our goal
should be to have a best of breed tool waiting for them when they start
to experiment.  

As far as making a system in which to develop languages (a very
reasonable assessment of Squeak's origins), there is indeed use for such
things, if only to some computer scientists.  To me, computers are a
tool, and I am quite content to program them in Smalltalk and focus on
my real work.

IMHO, the Squeak community should embrace both concepts.  Some assume
that means we must fork off a true Smalltalk system, leaving a volatile
branch being for UI and language tinkerers.  However, I suspect that
most of those wanting a bleeding edge system would be very well served
by running such code on top of any good Smalltalk environment.

You will sometimes see the phrase "don't break our toy."  I have no
desire to do that; I simply would like the toy refactored such that a
robust tool (useful to people like me) would lurk underneath the toy. 
Then new arrivals such as yourself would have the benefit of the system
style suited to their needs, with both styles supported by the same
broad community.

Bill





"David Zmick" <dz0004455 at ...>dz0004455 at ...  wrote:

I have been wondering how to make smalltalk a more "popular" language,
because i think it is excellent, and i think it would be good to try to
get other people to use it, because, i don't notice to many younger
programmers, like myself, using smalltalk, though, i may be wrong.  One
of the first thing i would think of to promote smalltalk would be
writing programs in smalltalk instead of just making smalltalk better, i
am not trying to discourage improvement on smalltalk, but if all you are
developing is a language for people to continue to develop a language
in, it seems like a waste of time.  The only program I know about, as in
big, large scale programs, written in smalltalk is PetroVR, i may be
wrong there to, but i see smalltalk as an excellent development
environment and language, but, nothing big is written in it, and it will
never grow if the community is focused entirely on making smalltalk
better.  I might be completely wrong, but that is what i have seen, but,
i have only really payed attention for a couple of months, and i think
it would be good to see some growth in smalltalk's popularity. :)

Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: bschwab at anest.ufl.edu
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029