Where's the beef? (Was: Re: [Newbies] [semi-OT] (fwd) Re: What Killed Smalltalk?)

> Steve Wessels wrote:
>> That's right.  Smalltalk hasn't died.  I am fortunate enough to be
>> part of a team developing financial software for many years using
>> Smalltalk.
>>
>> People have predicted Smalltalk's death about as often as Apple's death.
>>
>> I think comparisons between Smalltalk and Java have to take marketing
>> into account.
>>
>> Paying Smalltalk work is harder to find.  Here's an interesting
>> twist.  Companies looking for skilled Object Oriented developers, if
>> they understand what they need, will seek programmers with Smalltalk
>> experience.
>>
>>  
>
> Speaking as a long-term script kiddie who likes to collect languages,
> I can tell you that the main reason(s) why *I* find Smalltalk
> difficult to use involve(s): lack of documentation, lack of
> well-documented example code, lack of compsci teaching materials
> written with Smalltalk for the example code, etc. Notice a trend?
>
> Smalltalk may have been designed to be easy to learn and use, but it
> has never been adopted by the pedagogical community  of teachers and
> how-to book-writers, so naturally new programmers (from whom
> experienced programmers grow) are never attracted to it.
>
> The main issue is lack of ways for new programmers (experienced in
> other languages or otherwise) to learn not just the syntax of the
> language, but how to DO stuff with it.
>
> E.G.: I can't grab the Unix Programming or Unix Network Programming
> books by Stevens and work through Smalltalk equivalents of the example
> code. There's no Data Structures in Smalltalk books, nor Algorithm
> Analysis in Smalltalk books, nor build your own virtual world from
> scratch using Smalltalk and OpenGL, or Game AI in Smalltalk, or...
> There IS a Numerical Methods book in Smalltalk, but that's hardly
> beginner/intermediate level, IMHO.
>
> You get the idea. All the reference material for Smalltalk is geared
> for complete beginners, or for people who are exceedingly experienced.
> No middle ground.
>
>
> And some of the most interesting (sounding) aspects of Smalltalk, such
> as the Teatime architecture, are hardly covered in ways that relative
> newcomers can understand (speaking as a relative newcomer with a 2
> year AAS degree and a couple decades intermittent experience
> programming).
>
> Smalltalk (e.g. Squeak) may not be fast enough to be used in high-end
> production implementations, but surely it could be the
> language-of-choice for learning new aspects of compsci and
> programming. After all, many of these "new aspects" of compsci and
> programming were originally developed/matured using Smalltalk. Why
> should people have to go to a less versatile language in order to
> actually learn to use the results of Smalltalk-based research?
>
>
>
> Lawson
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