[squeak-dev] The future of Squeak & Pharo (was Re: [Pharo-project] [ANN] Pharo MIT license clean)

Göran Krampe goran at krampe.se
Sun Jun 28 15:55:26 UTC 2009


Hi!

Ian Trudel wrote:
> 2009/6/28 Göran Krampe <goran at krampe.se>:
>> Possibly true, but Smalltalk, Squeak, Etoys and even Croquet have been
>> around for quite some time now - and we haven't seen any real explosion yet.
>> Croquet was meant to "explode" but hasn't. So I am not holding my breath for
>> "the day Squeak gets popular" :)
> 
> Sometimes being popular means doing normal things. Smalltalk is an
> unusual programming language (in the sense of mainstream) with an
> overly eccentric environment in Squeak. Then there are Croquet, Etoys,
> and so on. It's hardly a break through if it's only "more" eccentric
> than eccentric. Don't you think?

Not sure what you mean there.

> The look-and-feel is designed for children. It's colourful, joyful, it
> bleeps and blink. How many professional developers are children? How
> many children are on this list? Enough with that already! Can we have
> a normal look-and-feel? A professional look-and-feel. =)

Personally I like the colors. I also don't equal "normal" with 
"professional". But such is taste!

> Squeak is stuck in some time warp, where the surrounding world is on
> stand still. It should however consider that we are living in 2009 and
> have needs of 2009. We need a different usability, developer tools and
> we have different goals.

Note that talking about what we "need" and what other people "want" is 
not really that fruitful. We get what we *do*, or in other words - if 
someone feels it is important enough to spend time on it - it will get 
done. Noone works on something because *someone else* told him to.

 > For example, Squeak hardly support the
> requirements of my distributors, which makes it overly challenging for
> me to consider Squeak as our platform of development.

Elaborate?

> Squeak doesn't need a killer app. It needs to be spruced up and put
> back on track. Honey moon is over, it's time to get real.

Hehe, I really don't agree. :)

Squeak *is* real. We already have our killer app (Seaside). We do need 
to clean shit up though (and I am not talking about UI primarily) and 
get the improvement process working. Currently Squeak.org is getting 
smashed (again, I don't have hard numbers, but I think I am right) by 
Pharo when it comes to hard, concrete, nitty gritt work getting done.

regards, Göran




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