Promoting Squeak/Smalltalk

On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 04:45:18PM -0600, David Zmick 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.

I am 22, which is younger than everyone else I've asked here.

>    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.

If it is fun, it is not a waste of time for that person. . But
you are right; it should not be the only direction we pursue. I
really want to push that as the vision for the next release
team.

>    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.

There are lots of big seaside projects; the biggest is
dabbledb.com. Croquet is pretty big too.

>    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. :)

>

--
Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/
Help improve Squeak Documentation: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/808

On 29-Jan-08, at 2:45 PM, David Zmick wrote:

> 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. :)

Why would it be good if Smalltalk were more popular?

Colin

On 29-Jan-08, at 3:19 PM, David Zmick wrote:

> so it wont die out

Well, that seems unlikely to happen any time soon. Smalltalk has been
around, in one form or another, for nearly 40 years.

I suppose if something much, much better came along, we might all
switch, but that would be a good thing, wouldn't it?

Colin

The benefits of popularity seem clear.  There would be more smart
people with more spare time to contribute good ideas and code.  There
would be more jobs and a better chance of making a living using the
language.  The second benefit would feed into the first, and vice-versa.

The question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs.  Since the
benefits seem obvious to me, I'll assume that you're really expressing
skepticism about whether the benefits outweigh the costs.  What do you
think the costs are? (I can think of a few, but I'm curious about what
others think)

Josh

On Jan 29, 2008, at 3:14 PM, Colin Putney wrote:

>
> On 29-Jan-08, at 2:45 PM, David Zmick wrote:
>
>> 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. :)
>
> Why would it be good if Smalltalk were more popular?
>
> Colin
>

On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:42:52 -0800, Joshua Gargus <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> The question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs.  Since the
> benefits seem obvious to me, I'll assume that you're really expressing
> skepticism about whether the benefits outweigh the costs.  What do you
> think the costs are? (I can think of a few, but I'm curious about what
> others think)

I'm wondering if one of the benefits would be that we wouldn't have to
have this discussion again. ;-)

On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:47:17 -0800, David Zmick <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> i didn't know this conversation was already had
>
> On Jan 29, 2008 5:47 PM, Blake <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 29 Jan 2008 15:42:52 -0800, Joshua Gargus <[hidden email]>
>> wrote:
>> > The question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs.  Since the
>> > benefits seem obvious to me, I'll assume that you're really expressing
>> > skepticism about whether the benefits outweigh the costs.  What do you
>> > think the costs are? (I can think of a few, but I'm curious about what
>> > others think)
>>
>> I'm wondering if one of the benefits would be that we wouldn't have to
>> have this discussion again. ;-)

Yeah. It's an annual event, along with the licensing debate, introduction
of new graphic systems.... I'm sure I'm missing some.

It's not a =bad= conversation, though, despite my snark.

On 29-Jan-08, at 3:42 PM, Joshua Gargus wrote:

> The benefits of popularity seem clear.  There would be more smart
> people with more spare time to contribute good ideas and code.
> There would be more jobs and a better chance of making a living
> using the language.  The second benefit would feed into the first,
> and vice-versa.

Well, I agree that smart people contributing to the community would be
a good thing. But popularity doesn't necessarily imply smart people,
it just means *more* people. I think the community we have today is
actually quite good. The "unpopularity" of Smalltalk acts as a filter.
To be a Smalltalker you've got to be smart enough to recognize the
benefits, confident enough to leave the mainstream, and resourceful
enough to overcome the obstacles that working in an "unpopular"
language entails. If Smalltalk were more popular, I doubt we would
actually get all that many more "smart people" than we have now.

Now, making a living using the language. Popularity would probably
bring more jobs, but it would also bring more programmers to compete
for those jobs. It would probably also lower the average salary of
Smalltalk jobs. That might or might not be a good thing.

> The question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs.  Since the
> benefits seem obvious to me, I'll assume that you're really
> expressing skepticism about whether the benefits outweigh the
> costs.  What do you think the costs are? (I can think of a few, but
> I'm curious about what others think)

I guess there are two costs. One is the effort and sacrifices required
to make Smalltalk popular. For example, we might try creating a Ruby-
on-Rails clone in Smalltalk, in order to take advantage of the current
vogue in web apps. That would be a fair amount of work, presumably
done by people who might otherwise be working on things that benefit
the existing community. Or perhaps Seaside could be "dumbed down" so
it could be marketed to the kind of developer that doesn't like the
"magic" of continuations. That makes Seaside worse for the rest of us.

The other cost is all the noise that would get introduced into the
community. Sure, Java has more libraries than Smalltalk, but most of
them are just crap. All they do is make it harder to find the good
stuff, and diffuse the energy of the community.

In general, I think we'd be better to focus not on popularity, but on
community. Yes, a certain size is required for the community to
function well, but beyond that there are diminishing returns from
further growth. As long as the VM gets maintained, libraries written,
bugs fixed, questions answered, newbies encouraged - as long as the
community is functioning - Smalltalk is sufficiently popular.

Colin

i agree, but i also think that we should develop client applications, not just the language. For example in "Squeak By Example" you make quinto, and the rest is about developing, you dont really make anything, just learn how to make the language better.  In my java book, there are at least 20 applications you write.  My point is, i think smalltalk should be used for application development instead of just developing smalltalk.  It seems pointless to me to develop a language so that people can continue to develop the language, its like an infinite loop.  Thats what i see.

On Jan 29, 2008 6:51 PM, Colin Putney <[hidden email]> wrote:

On 29-Jan-08, at 3:42 PM, Joshua Gargus wrote:

> The benefits of popularity seem clear.  There would be more smart
> people with more spare time to contribute good ideas and code.
> There would be more jobs and a better chance of making a living
> using the language.  The second benefit would feed into the first,
> and vice-versa.

Well, I agree that smart people contributing to the community would be
a good thing. But popularity doesn't necessarily imply smart people,
it just means *more* people. I think the community we have today is
actually quite good. The "unpopularity" of Smalltalk acts as a filter.
To be a Smalltalker you've got to be smart enough to recognize the
benefits, confident enough to leave the mainstream, and resourceful
enough to overcome the obstacles that working in an "unpopular"
language entails. If Smalltalk were more popular, I doubt we would
actually get all that many more "smart people" than we have now.

Now, making a living using the language. Popularity would probably
bring more jobs, but it would also bring more programmers to compete
for those jobs. It would probably also lower the average salary of
Smalltalk jobs. That might or might not be a good thing.

> The question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs.  Since the
> benefits seem obvious to me, I'll assume that you're really
> expressing skepticism about whether the benefits outweigh the
> costs.  What do you think the costs are? (I can think of a few, but
> I'm curious about what others think)

I guess there are two costs. One is the effort and sacrifices required
to make Smalltalk popular. For example, we might try creating a Ruby-
on-Rails clone in Smalltalk, in order to take advantage of the current
vogue in web apps. That would be a fair amount of work, presumably
done by people who might otherwise be working on things that benefit
the existing community. Or perhaps Seaside could be "dumbed down" so
it could be marketed to the kind of developer that doesn't like the
"magic" of continuations. That makes Seaside worse for the rest of us.

The other cost is all the noise that would get introduced into the
community. Sure, Java has more libraries than Smalltalk, but most of
them are just crap. All they do is make it harder to find the good
stuff, and diffuse the energy of the community.

In general, I think we'd be better to focus not on popularity, but on
community. Yes, a certain size is required for the community to
function well, but beyond that there are diminishing returns from
further growth. As long as the VM gets maintained, libraries written,
bugs fixed, questions answered, newbies encouraged - as long as the
community is functioning - Smalltalk is sufficiently popular.

Colin

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. :)