[squeak-dev] Nothing much [was: what is holding back Smalltalk?]

Klaus D. Witzel klaus.witzel at cobss.com
Fri Nov 21 08:28:05 UTC 2008


On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:02:47 +0100, Mark Volkmann <mark at ociweb.com> wrote:

> I don't have a lot of experience with Smalltalk yet, but I really love  
> what I've seen so far.
>
> I'm curious what experienced Smalltalkers see as some of the reasons why  
> it doesn't attract more attention.

Me thinks that the Smalltalk community is healthy and vibrant--it is  
"just" a community form one would not expect for Ruby or Python or Perl,  
etc. To get impression of my impression take a look at what *actually*  
happened during the *recent* months:

- Exupery (native x86 methods) powers Huemul
- Seaside (web++ framework++) powers GLASS
- Hydra (multiple parallel .images) powers Croquet .images
- Google hires developers with deep Smalltalk experience
- two more gods to be worshipped in the VM temple ;)
- Squeak powers NewSpeak
- new book Squeak by Example (creative commons license)
- port of OpenDBX to Squeak (still not on windoze)
- port of Squeak/VM to "another" smartphone platform ;)
- DrGeo made it to the XO (OLPC)
- fresh new subcommunity Pharo
- attempt? to port Moose (world class sw analysis) to Squeak
- Google hires developers with deep Smalltalk experience
- Squeak web site migrated to/powered by Aida/Web Squeak
- 4 (four) projects run through 2008's Goggle Summer of Code
- the "everybody needs it" Safara from GSoC as yet not in mainstream
- the "everybody needs it" Squeak GTK from GSoC as yet not in mainstream
- IBM builds Smalltalk IDE inside Eclipse
- Google hires developers with deep Smalltalk experience
- ESUG 2008 conference draws more attendands than ever

That list is of course incomplete, for example one wants to add the many  
noobs who joined #squeak and the beginners mailing list.

I do not think that *soo* much is holding back Smalltalk ;)

/Klaus

-- 
"If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it".  
Albert Einstein

> I understand the issues with Smalltalk in the past related to license  
> costs and performance, but those have been addressed now. Have you tried  
> to convince someone to consider Smalltalk and failed to convince them?  
> Why do you think they rejected it? What improvements could be made to  
> current Smalltalk environments, especially Squeak, that might sway them?
>
> For me the biggest issue has been trying to run my code from outside  
> Squeak. This includes running Squeak headless to do something script- 
> like and configuring a GUI application to run in a way that doesn't  
> require the user to know they are running Squeak. Both of these are  
> supposedly possible, but very difficult to get right.
>
> ---
> Mark Volkmann
>
>




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