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Memories about an ESUG talk: Smalltalk's Image Problem

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Offray

Memories about an ESUG talk: Smalltalk's Image Problem

HI all,

I was making a talk here in Colombia trying to invite people to conform
a Smalltalk study group. I was showing them Pier and Seaside as "selling
points" for making a project and there is some initial interest. The
typical questions about:

* If Smalltalk is so good, why is not widely known ?
* Which famous/big project is made with Smalltalk ?

where in place. I think that Pier, Seaside, Etoys, Scratch, DrGeo,
Croquet, are really good projects to motivate people towards learning
Smmalltalk, but they're kind of "niche" projects (I have no problem with
that), but searching for information about who to solve these questions
I found this talk on ESUG 2009:

http://www.esug.org/Conferences/2009/Current+List+of+Talks/Smalltalk%27s+Image+Problem

So I wonder if anyone has the memories/slides of this talk and, of
course, what community thinks about these questions.

Thanks,

Offray

Mariano Martinez Peck

Re: Memories about an ESUG talk: Smalltalk's Image Problem

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 8:16 PM, Offray Vladimir Luna Cárdenas <[hidden email]> wrote:

HI all,

I was making a talk here in Colombia trying to invite people to conform a Smalltalk study group. I was showing them Pier and Seaside as "selling points" for making a project and there is some initial interest. The typical questions about:

* If Smalltalk is so good, why is not widely known ?

Half serious / half jookes

- Marketing
- It was expensive -> none (or few?) open-source dialect existed when Java arrived.
- Something that is easy and simple is difficult to sell. Companies are stupid. They buy complexity.
- Because doing Smalltalk is a letal weapon for a company. Imagine you have a super secret tool that makes a big difference with your competirors, would you tell it to your competiros?
- Smalltalkers used to be quite close people and nobody likes to document -> Smalltalk has few documentation in comparison to other languages.
- Smalltalk is too different from all the rest of the languages.
- Companies are afraid of using Smalltalk because nobody use it -> endess loop.
- Because few universities teach Smalltalk now.
- Because it is difficult to find Smalltalkers, hence companies don't want to buy a proyect where they cannot find people to maintain it after.

* Which famous/big project is made with Smalltalk ?

- JP Morgan
- Telecom
- AMD
- Banks
- Medical stuff
- Military

http://www.goodstart.com/who-uses-smalltalk.ssp
http://www.esug.org/wiki/pier/Smaltalk/Companies

where in place. I think that Pier, Seaside, Etoys, Scratch, DrGeo, Croquet,

- Moose, Magma, Gemstone

are really good projects to motivate people towards learning Smmalltalk, but they're kind of "niche" projects (I have no problem with that), but searching for information about who to solve these questions I found this talk on ESUG 2009:

http://www.esug.org/Conferences/2009/Current+List+of+Talks/Smalltalk%27s+Image+Problem

So I wonder if anyone has the memories/slides of this talk and, of course, what community thinks about these questions.

Thanks,

Offray

--
Mariano
http://marianopeck.wordpress.com

Sean P. DeNigris

Re: Memories about an ESUG talk: Smalltalk's Image Problem

Administrator

In reply to this post by Offray

Offray wrote

If Smalltalk is so good, why is not widely known ?

The real answer: It's an invalid question because it presupposes the invalid assumption that quality -> wide acceptance. Of course, there are an infinite number of concrete "reasons", but ultimately it's that "human progress" that happens in a straight line over time is an illusion. We are not immune to the chaos of the universe. Ideas (as systems interacting with all the systems of their environment, and the environments of those environments...) do not take off, or not, based on quality, but on the sum of the forces acting on them, which are mostly beyond our understanding or control.

What you could actually say that they will hear: see below

Offray wrote

Which famous/big project is made with Smalltalk ?

Mariano nailed it: Smalltalk is considered such a competitive advantage that companies that use it usually won't admit it, and often won't allow the vendors to talk about it.

Cheers,
Sean