Mea Culpa
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Okay, so far, I've made two mistakes. First was my lack of sensitivity to cultural differences around the world. Now that I know better, I shall do better.
Second was my failure to distinguish between different subgroups within the Pharo forum. The reason I chose Pharo forum to discuss my campaign was the fact that it is the most active Smalltalk forum there is. People who are interested in Smalltalk join the most active forum generally, and this includes not only Pharoers, but people from ESUG, Squeak, Cincom, Amber, Redline, etc. So, for example, when I appealed for contributors to the Redline project, I should've distinguished the target audience as those groups other than Pharoers. This was my failure and I own up to it. It is unfortunate that I must use the Pharo forum for this purpose. The Smalltalk community is so terribly fragmented that there is no universal Smalltalk forum to address, at least, none that is actually inhabited. Without the ability to address the largest number of Smalltalkers, the SRP cannot make any progress. I'm sorry, but I have to be blunt. If anyone can offer a practical alternative, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, the SRP has only two choices: 1) Continue what it is doing on the Pharo forum, and be mindful of which group(s) I am addressing. 2) Fold up the campaign and leave the destiny of Smalltalk to the Fates. Without the ability to reach out to Smalltalkers everywhere, I am hopelessly disadvantaged. Regards, Richard |
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Hello Richard,
2015-01-21 17:12 GMT-03:00 horrido <[hidden email]>: Okay, so far, I've made two mistakes. First was my lack of sensitivity to You better take a lot of care writing about politics, sports, or whatever that could be considered Off-Topic. Some people is always looking for excuses to kick out offenders. And some others are monitoring with eagle eyes any out-of-order comment you can possibly write. Rules of the game. Second was my failure to distinguish between different subgroups within the Welcome to Smalltalk :) The reason I chose Pharo forum to discuss my campaign was the interested in Smalltalk join the most active forum generally, and this Yes, this is parasitic behavior and well-known for biologists. Unfortunately I haven't seen many smalltalkers interested in on-line social behavior, probably because in such small community the most valuable asset is The Code, followed by The Documentation. Which of course, are excuses to get The Money. So, for example, when I appealed for contributors to the Redline project, I Then maybe you should start your own Smalltalk mailing-list? For spanish language we have ClubSmalltalk. Is a cross-smalltalk mailing list where people may write in other languages, but has become really low volume in the last years. And Smalltalk was (is?) very popular in Argentina, so you can get a dimension of how terribly small the community is. If anyone can offer a practical alternative, I'd like to hear it. Otherwise, I am not that convinced Smalltalk should be popular. Surely any smalltalker could find easily (more) job offers, that would be the only determinant factor because we need desperately more Smalltalk positions. But popularity has many drawbacks.... some smalltalkers are afraid to competition, and we all read the StackOverflow 'popular' questions... So, my alternative is: Instead of broadcasting Smalltalk by traditional internet advertising, go and get them. I suspect you won't get much from us, we are some kind of Loyal Customers. But there are tons of unexperienced developers lacking of fear to change, which are reading Quora, StackExchange, Wikipedia, etc. And unexperienced developers are the next business decision makers. For example, see this articles which CS students read every day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-ended_queue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit_array http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_search_algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_function http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_%28computer_science%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artificial_intelligence_projects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorting_algorithm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XML http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software No Smalltalk mention there. There you have it, the Library of Alexandria of our time, and people do not read about us. Cheers, Hernán Regards, |
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A new mailing list that is uninhabited has no value for our campaign. If you create one, it may take months or years before a large number of Smalltalkers migrate to it. There are people who don't care for Smalltalk's popularity, and there are people who really hope that Smalltalk becomes mainstream. I strongly suspect that the latter group is much larger. Smalltalk positions are relatively few and far between (at least, this is true in Canada). Becoming mainstream is the only way to improve this. Very few developers are willing to relocate. In order to improve Smalltalk's popularity, it is necessary to harness the support and energy of the Smalltalk community. This is not a question of preaching to the converted; it's about getting help to convert others. |
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In reply to this post by hernanmd
Popularity indeed comes with a high price. Guido the creator of python he has said in one of his presentation that there many people who want to add their libraries to python distribution but they should not want to do that, because once a library is added it become very difficult to change since so many people depend on it to keep backward compatibility. He claimed that even simple bug fixes have to go through lengthy review process. This can be expanded to the entirety of the IDE and the language. This the most important reason why pharo has been moving forward so fast and why popular languages move at glacial speed. I dont want to lose that so yes I dont want for pharo to become popular. On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:45 AM, Hernán Morales Durand <[hidden email]> wrote:
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Excerpts from kilon alios's message of 2015-01-22 08:13:57 +0100:
> Popularity indeed comes with a high price. Guido the creator of python he > has said in one of his presentation that there many people who want to add > their libraries to python distribution but they should not want to do that, > because once a library is added it become very difficult to change since so > many people depend on it to keep backward compatibility. He claimed that > even simple bug fixes have to go through lengthy review process. This can > be expanded to the entirety of the IDE and the language. > > This the most important reason why pharo has been moving forward so fast > and why popular languages move at glacial speed. > I dont want to lose that so yes I dont want for pharo to become popular. squeak already hast that 'problem' i believe and pharo is actively working to counteract it by removing less important things. so i doubt pharo will suffer from the pressure to fill it up with new packages any time soon. in this case it may be a win for all because those who want backwards compatibility can choose squeak, and those who want fast paced action may use pharo. also craig with context is working on minimizing the images which i believe should help to move more and more things out of the core, allowing you to pull them back in, making it possible to choose from various versions, based on your compatibility needs. ironically, i actually expect to want backwards compatibility in the future. but backwards to now, not to a decade ago, so i hope pharo development will eventually slow down somewhat. in addition, the multiple smalltalk implementations also act as a stabilizing factor, because people will want to write code that runs on all of them. (seaside for example) so pharo can't go that far out of line and make itself completely incompatible. i am also not sure which is better. a large standard library makes for a more stable system. having lots of important 3rd party libraries can lead to dependency issues... greetings, martin. -- eKita - the online platform for your entire academic life -- chief engineer eKita.co pike programmer pike.lysator.liu.se caudium.net societyserver.org secretary beijinglug.org mentor fossasia.org foresight developer foresightlinux.org realss.com unix sysadmin Martin Bähr working in china http://societyserver.org/mbaehr/ |
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Hey Richard, I believe the only alive cross-dialect space is the #smalltalk IRC channel in FreeNode. There's an average of 25~30 people online in that channel, which is not _too_ bad considering the size of our community. Still, compare that to, say, #lisp, with ~400 users and also being a cross-dialect channel. Smalltalkers feel quite strong about their particular dialect. I'm not criticizing this behavior, I'm just stating facts. I also have strong feelings for "my dialects" and I don't think this is necessarily bad. However, there are some "de-facto" meeting points for all Smalltalks, like http://world.st. Even though there is no mailing list that joins all of us together, this space does feature a homogenized list of all forums (http://forum.world.st/). Planet Smalltalk (http://planet.smalltalk.org/) is another great one for those of us who use RSS feeds. Indeed, it could take quite a while before a generic Smalltalk list was populated enough, but these two efforts show there might be an interest. Cheers, Bernat. 2015-01-22 9:11 GMT+01:00 Martin Bähr <[hidden email]>: Excerpts from kilon alios's message of 2015-01-22 08:13:57 +0100: Bernat Romagosa.
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In reply to this post by horrido
I don't think there is a need for new lists.
We've had comp.lang.smalltalk.advocacy and comp.lang.smalltalk. Currently we leave them to the spammers, and trolls, which is a bad sign for outsiders. Always moving somewhere new and leave old trash around doesn't improve anything, does it? Joachim Am 22.01.2015 13:41 schrieb Bernat Romagosa <[hidden email]>: > > Hey Richard, > > I believe the only alive cross-dialect space is the #smalltalk IRC channel in FreeNode. There's an average of 25~30 people online in that channel, which is not _too_ bad considering the size of our community. Still, compare that to, say, #lisp, with ~400 users and also being a cross-dialect channel. > > Smalltalkers feel quite strong about their particular dialect. I'm not criticizing this behavior, I'm just stating facts. I also have strong feelings for "my dialects" and I don't think this is necessarily bad. > > However, there are some "de-facto" meeting points for all Smalltalks, like http://world.st. Even though there is no mailing list that joins all of us together, this space does feature a homogenized list of all forums (http://forum.world.st/). Planet Smalltalk (http://planet.smalltalk.org/) is another great one for those of us who use RSS feeds. > > Indeed, it could take quite a while before a generic Smalltalk list was populated enough, but these two efforts show there might be an interest. > > Cheers, > Bernat. > > 2015-01-22 9:11 GMT+01:00 Martin Bähr <[hidden email]>: >> >> Excerpts from kilon alios's message of 2015-01-22 08:13:57 +0100: >> > Popularity indeed comes with a high price. Guido the creator of python he >> > has said in one of his presentation that there many people who want to add >> > their libraries to python distribution but they should not want to do that, >> > because once a library is added it become very difficult to change since so >> > many people depend on it to keep backward compatibility. He claimed that >> > even simple bug fixes have to go through lengthy review process. This can >> > be expanded to the entirety of the IDE and the language. >> > >> > This the most important reason why pharo has been moving forward so fast >> > and why popular languages move at glacial speed. >> > I dont want to lose that so yes I dont want for pharo to become popular. >> >> squeak already hast that 'problem' i believe and pharo is actively working to >> counteract it by removing less important things. so i doubt pharo will suffer >> from the pressure to fill it up with new packages any time soon. >> >> in this case it may be a win for all because those who want backwards >> compatibility can choose squeak, and those who want fast paced action may use >> pharo. >> >> also craig with context is working on minimizing the images which i believe >> should help to move more and more things out of the core, allowing you to pull >> them back in, making it possible to choose from various versions, based on your >> compatibility needs. >> >> ironically, i actually expect to want backwards compatibility in the future. >> but backwards to now, not to a decade ago, so i hope pharo development will >> eventually slow down somewhat. >> >> in addition, the multiple smalltalk implementations also act as a stabilizing >> factor, because people will want to write code that runs on all of them. >> (seaside for example) so pharo can't go that far out of line and make itself >> completely incompatible. >> >> i am also not sure which is better. a large standard library makes for a more stable system. >> having lots of important 3rd party libraries can lead to dependency issues... >> >> greetings, martin. >> >> -- >> eKita - the online platform for your entire academic life >> -- >> chief engineer eKita.co >> pike programmer pike.lysator.liu.se caudium.net societyserver.org >> secretary beijinglug.org >> mentor fossasia.org >> foresight developer foresightlinux.org realss.com >> unix sysadmin >> Martin Bähr working in china http://societyserver.org/mbaehr/ >> > > > > -- > Bernat Romagosa. |
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In reply to this post by hernanmd
For me, the goal is "critical mass" - big enough where issues and new projects move forward with ease. And this is probably just a few hundred percent. Mass popularity brings in people disconnected from the vision. Smalltalk for me is prototype Dynabook software. If it was just "a better programming environment", I'd still use it, but I doubt there would still be a passionate dream for the future of humanity attached to it...
Cheers,
Sean |
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In reply to this post by horrido
On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:12 AM, horrido <[hidden email]> wrote: Okay, so far, I've made two mistakes. First was my lack of sensitivity to But targeting a non-Pharoer audience by posting on a Pharo mail list is not a good plan for success. Look at it this way... If mind share leads to success, then definitely Pharo is trying to build mind share. But people have busy lives with room for only a few interests, so someone you draw to Redline may end up one less contributor to Pharo. That may help Redline and Smalltalk, but Pharo loses.
That is an unfortunate position to be in - but it is not Pharo's problem. That is, it is not Pharo's burden to solve all the ills of the (Smalltalk) world. Indeed, consider that Pharo specifically aspires to be more-than-Smalltalk. Maybe "that" is part of the spark that draws people to overcome preconceptions about Smalltalk (although there are mixed opinions on that, that don't need rehashing right now) Now some of us do have a passing interest in news of other Smalltalks (well usually just Amber in the past) - as long as its short and not too distracting. Again, people are busy and off-topic (i.e. non-Pharo) posts add noise that burns time - and so volume is discouraged. I think it is fair to announce articles that equally discuss Pharo and other Smalltalk dialects in the greater context of Smalltalk, but not directly soliciting people for other projects, no matter your good intentions.
I appreciate your ambitions for Smalltalk in general, but I think you risk further conflict using the Pharo forum as a platform to promote Smalltalk in general. It is technically off-topic. Personally I don't want someone "leveraging" our community. I want them "participating" in our community.
Its a tough choice, but there are a few others you might also consider. 3) Connect with each fragment of Smalltalk in their own forums. Obviously more work. 4) Align more closely with Pharo or one of the other Smalltalks. Consider that Smalltalk may be a general concept, and in that moment after you gain someone's attention, it may be better to have one concrete path to follow rather than burning their interest trying to choose a path to take. 5) Stick with it but go slower. I'll start another thread regarding this on the popularity of programming languages. I'll leave you to your considerations. cheers -ben
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In reply to this post by Sean P. DeNigris
Any language that has a significant user base, ie, a large number of applications, will experience resistance to change. The only way to avoid this is for people NOT to use the language.
The fear of popularization will condemn a language to permanent niche status. That's fine, if that's what the user community wants. The language will forever be a "hobbyist" tool.
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In reply to this post by horrido
>>Without the ability to address the largest number of Smalltalkers, the SRP
cannot make any progress.<< Did you do any research on this before embarking? You may not be the first person who has attempted what you're trying. Often when I'm trying to accomplish something that hasn't previously been attempted or, if attempted, not attained, I find that I've misunderstood where the difficulty lies. In very few cases is it merely a matter of determination. Looking at others' failures can be instructive. |
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In reply to this post by horrido
Hi,
I don't care about popularity, jvm or javascript now. I'm a newbie, but I was not drawn to Pharo/Smalltalk because of that. If that were the case I would choose an already popular language with javascript and/or jvm support. It's not about fear of the unpopular but doesn't caring about it (for the narrative in anglo tv series, seems that there is a big deal about being popular for North American people, specially in adolescence, but I digress). I share the attraction for the Dynabook idea and how a system could be understood by a single person.I have my own ideas about what a computer mediated experience could be, some related with the dynabook, some others don't and Smalltalk lets me explore/express some of that ideas more fluidly. What I would like from Smalltalk is to have is a better support for integration with the "external" world of computing, starting with documentation pandoc/TeX/luatex, fossil dvcs, then (I)Python, mind mapping and so on. I think that SRP has a "flaw" of showing itself as some kind of way to save Smalltalk of its unpopular destiny, not being on top 10 of TIOBE or being a niche platform, but for me that's not a cruel destiny and if it were that's not the best way to fight against it, but by building stuff that more people can use. Talking by making instead of talking by talking. We can start with some small community and spread from there (interactive documentation is my approach). So may be the best way of SRP to serve Smalltalk could be to not be so "self-serving" about its own goals (popularity, jvm, javascript, enterprise, TIOBE) and show the diversity of views and concerns of the Smalltalk community. To be a place for diversity in Smalltalk (may be a curator of dispersed experiences elsewhere). I hope it helps, Offray El 22/01/15 a las 13:03, horrido escribió: > Any language that has a significant user base, ie, a large number of > applications, will experience resistance to change. The only way to avoid > this is for people NOT to use the language. > > The fear of popularization will condemn a language to permanent niche > status. That's fine, if that's what the user community wants. The language > will forever be a "hobbyist" tool. > > > Sean P. DeNigris wrote >> >> hernanmd wrote >>> I am not that convinced Smalltalk should be popular >> For me, the goal is "critical mass" - big enough where issues and new >> projects move forward with ease. And this is probably just a few hundred >> percent. Mass popularity brings in people disconnected from the vision. >> Smalltalk for me is prototype Dynabook software. If it was just "a better >> programming environment", I'd still use it, but I doubt there would still >> be a passionate dream for the future of humanity attached to it... > > > > > > -- > View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Mea-Culpa-tp4800840p4801047.html > Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > |
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In reply to this post by Martin Bähr
We changed a lot between 20 and 30 and still mariano migrated all its
development in one afternoon. So changing does not mean breaking systematically api. Stef |
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In reply to this post by blake watson
In fact, I did look for previous attempts to "market" Smalltalk. I found nothing. All previous attempts to popularize Smalltalk have been grassroots, ie, using word of mouth; giving talks and seminars at conferences and local user groups; a scattered (and somewhat chaotic) collection of blogs and websites. Nothing that focuses attention.
A personal note: it was word of mouth that got me hooked on Smalltalk. A close friend of mine from Cherniak Software persuaded me to look into Smalltalk. If not for him, I'd still think Smalltalk was a dying language today.
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In reply to this post by Offray
This is the popular "if you build it, they will come" philosophy. It may work, but I seriously doubt it. I don't understand what you mean by "self-serving". The SRP does not serve itself – it serves you, the Smalltalk community. It's sole purpose is to promote your language, to raise it in the public consciousness, to get people to try it. There is no other agenda. Of course, whether or not you want this attention is a different question.
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Hi,
On 2015-01-22 16:27, horrido wrote: > Offray wrote >> I think that SRP has a "flaw" of showing itself as some kind of way to >> save Smalltalk of its unpopular destiny, not being on top 10 of TIOBE >> or >> being a niche platform, but for me that's not a cruel destiny and if >> it >> were that's not the best way to fight against it, but by building >> stuff >> that more people can use. Talking by making instead of talking by >> talking. We can start with some small community and spread from there >> (interactive documentation is my approach). > > This is the popular "if you build it, they will come" philosophy. It > /may/ > work, but I seriously doubt it. > No. I don't believe in the build -> come assumption. Is more like non-popular but meaninful in the context I care about by the transformations it empowers on that context and with the potential to go beyond that context. Think small, but interconnected. >> So may be the best way of SRP to serve Smalltalk could be to not be so >> "self-serving" about its own goals (popularity, jvm, javascript, >> enterprise, TIOBE) and show the diversity of views and concerns of the >> Smalltalk community. To be a place for diversity in Smalltalk (may be >> a >> curator of dispersed experiences elsewhere). > > I don't understand what you mean by "self-serving". The SRP does not > serve > itself – it serves *you*, the Smalltalk community. It's sole purpose is > to > promote your language, to raise it in the public consciousness, to get > people to try it. There is no other agenda. > > Of course, whether or not you /want/ this attention is a different > question. > I mean self-serving in the sense that is about making Smalltalk popular, advocating for enterprise, jvm or javascript, which are goals traced by the project itself. I don't think that they're not important (at least for some in the community), but I think that they don't reflect the various concerns and potentials that can help to Smalltalk as a broader community. Trying to listen the community __before__ tracing the goals for SRP is my main message here. A more "etnographer" approach instead of the "saleman" one, if I can make the analogy. Cheers, Offray |
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This is good advice. Also Ben’s. Richard that attitude you had in this thread is making your campaign more interesting, I’m looking forward to what comes after these reflections. About the fragmentation we have, it’s true. I think is a "necessary evil” to get things done in each dialect/framework/artefact. If we somehow could make easy to keep (sub)communities connected, friends, we might be able to capitalize on Metcalfe’s law in everybody’s favor. And for me too it was the case of a friend that repeatedly cared to show me how the whole development cycle in smalltalk was “different” and interesting. So friend sounds like a strategic word to make things better
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In reply to this post by hernanmd
One of the chief reasons I would like Smalltalk to be more popular is to spur the expansion of the Pharo (Smalltalk) ecosystem, i.e., domain-specific class libraries. For example, I'm interested in A.I. and machine learning. This involves a great deal of statistical and numerical computing, an area where Pharo (Smalltalk) is not particularly strong. Python, on the other hand, has fabulous support for statistical and numerical computing, which frankly makes me very envious. The reason why Python has this is because of its vast user base, i.e., its popularity. There simply aren't enough Smalltalkers interested in statistical and numerical computing to develop such libraries. |
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On Sat, Aug 13, 2016 at 6:47 PM, horrido <[hidden email]> wrote:
> hernanmd wrote >> I am not that convinced Smalltalk should be popular. Surely any >> smalltalker >> could find easily (more) job offers, that would be the only determinant >> factor because we need desperately more Smalltalk positions. But >> popularity >> has many drawbacks.... some smalltalkers are afraid to competition, and we >> all read the StackOverflow 'popular' questions... > > One of the chief reasons I would like Smalltalk to be more popular is to > spur the expansion of the Pharo (Smalltalk) ecosystem, i.e., domain-specific > class libraries. For example, I'm interested in A.I. and machine learning. > This involves a great deal of statistical and numerical computing, an area > where Pharo (Smalltalk) is not particularly strong. Python, on the other > hand, has *fabulous* support for statistical and numerical computing, which > frankly makes me very envious. The reason why Python has this is because of > its vast user base, i.e., its /popularity/. > > There simply aren't enough Smalltalkers interested in statistical and > numerical computing to develop such libraries. You help us advertise the PolyMath effort and find money and/or people :-) https://github.com/PolyMathOrg/PolyMath -- Serge Stinckwich UCBN & UMI UMMISCO 209 (IRD/UPMC) Every DSL ends up being Smalltalk http://www.doesnotunderstand.org/ |
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