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Why Aren't People Using Smalltalk?

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philippeback

Re: Why Aren't People Using Smalltalk?

Ah, thx :-)

Yeah, thanks HerbySk!

Learned a lot from your code and toolchain Herby.

Heck, even made me want to dig deeper into JS. Hah, another rabbit hole I am down into.

Yes, it is like 1980 (8-bit era) all over again, with variety, and mind blowing new stuff.

I kind of like that. This has renewed my sense of wonder! No need to feel overwhelmed. I am just feeling grateful and happy with all of that great stuff popping up all over.

Just look at the Pi Zero... That's a nice home for a Pharo image or two :-)

Phil

On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 9:54 AM, Dimitris Chloupis <[hidden email]> wrote:

Bravo Phil , +1 million, I cannot upvote this enough.

Seriously there is absolutely nothing wrong with Smalltall being unpopular, 99.9999% of languages out there are 1000 times more unpopular than smalltalk and they are still being used some of them even on a daily basis. Languages are tools, not instruments of world domination.

We are lucky enough to live in the age of tons of programming tool and approaches. Amber and Pharo have their own place in this Universe of tools.

And as you said, embrace what we have , be glad for the effort of people like Herby's that he invests hard work to make tools like Amber relevant and useful and from there on its just a matter of making interfacing with other tools easier and simpler.

On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 10:48 AM [hidden email] <[hidden email]> wrote:
As I am working on the following non-Pharo tech:

Hadoop 2.x --> lots of Java, Python, Ruby, even C
ZendFramework2 --> PHP5.6 (has closures, array.map, filter, ... yay!), Swagger (API desc/gen)
CSS --> Bootstrap 3 + themes like Metronic or SmartAdmin, SASS
AngularJS 1.4.x --> JavaScript all over, promises, Restangular, templates
JavaScript --> Grunt, Browsersync, some Amber, minification, concat...
Ionic --> lots of custom directives for mobile + Android SDK and Studio
Angular-Material --> Material Design stuff
MongoDB --> gridFS
Data science --> R, RStudio, Shiny, Python, Pandas, Numpy, Scipy, Lapack, Jupyter notebook, ...

Do I want any of these communities go to Pharo? Why?

Heh, I don't.

They are fine in their own right. Pharo is not the Borg.

What we need is easy integration. Read: bridges.

Make Pharo more of a command line citizen.

The best would be to be able to mount an image like a filesystem.
And expose all of Pharo as a REST API.
And have a super duper command line tooling.
And have ability to call external code in, like, one liners (e.g. popen...)
And being integratable in other C programs, à la Python, TCL, ... (this one harder atm due to the interpreter loop implementation, but that's not a core issue, just a manpower/brainpower challenge)

This may take years, but we'll get there.

If anyone knows of a person with deep pockets and a wish to make a mark on the world, just tell that person to cut us a fat check (or two).

Popularity? Heck, I don't care.

1/ I care about a platform that is free, portable and understandable/hackable from top to bottom.

2/ I care about a platform that doesn't get into the flow of my thinking.

3/ I care about a platform that let me navigate around my codebase like it would be an extension of my brain.

4/ I care about a platform that let me write DSLs and parsers at the speed of thought so that I can generate a ton of what is needed by the above mentioned technology stacks.

That's what I get with Pharo and its VM.

What I am frustrated with is that I cannot use Pharo only for making the whole solution.

But let's make it nice for the backend and integration and we'll be fine.

FWIW, I am a Pharo consortium member and have made a commitment to stick with Pharo for as long as I'll be in business. One needs to see the long play. Hopefully, I'll be able to cut the above mentioned check on of these days.

Phil

On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 7:24 AM, Martin Bähr <[hidden email]> wrote:
Excerpts from EuanM's message of 2015-12-04 06:23:34 +0100:
> It's not the people who arrive that this matters for. It's the people
> who *don't* show up that this matters for.

exactly that!

> I would contend that while you, or I, might not feel this is an issue
> - it is a big issue for many.

of course, we would not be here if it mattered.

> And we in the Smalltalk communities are not being flooded with so many
> newcomers that we can afford to put them off before they even get
> here.
> - make them feel welcome in our forums, mailing lists, and chat
> channels. We especially need to be wary of the twin issues of "Just
> RTFM!" and mistaking inexperience and lack of knowledge for stupidity

i don't think we have a problem here, at least so far everything that i have
seen on pharo and squeak forums is doing this right. especially on the pharo
list, many people carry a reminder that any question us allowed, and answers
tend to be friendly.

smalltalk has so far been the most welcoming community i came across.

> I've attached a slide that I think helps show the plethora of choices
> even in zero-cost Smalltalks. (And I have not (yet) even got all the
> zero-cost Smalltalks onto the slide).

i don't recognize many of those logos except aida, seaside, pharo and amber. if
your point is that there are may application running on smalltalk, then i don't
really see that as a problem. ruby has more than just rails too. same for other
languages. that is just a sign of maturity. anyone taken aback by that can't
really be helped as they would have the same problem in any language.

greetings, martin.

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Martin Bähr

Re: Why Aren't People Using Smalltalk?

In reply to this post by kilon.alios

Excerpts from Dimitris Chloupis's message of 2015-12-04 09:54:29 +0100:
> Seriously there is absolutely nothing wrong with Smalltall being unpopular,
> 99.9999% of languages out there are 1000 times more unpopular than
> smalltalk and they are still being used some of them even on a daily basis.
> Languages are tools, not instruments of world domination.

there are two orthogonal goals. world domination is one, and making smalltalk
approachable is another. the latter is a requirement of the former, but the
former is not the only reason to do the latter.

not sure about others, but for me all the things so far about making smalltalk
more popular are not about world domination, but more about making smalltalk
an acceptable choice, so that i am not looked at like a fool for suggesting
smalltalk as a solution. (i am exaggerating here, but you get my point)

i don't mind smalltalk remaining obscure or even completely unknown, but i want
it to shine when taken under scrutiny. and when i do introduce it to my team,
then i don't want them to balk because it is to hard to learn or use.

> We are lucky enough to live in the age of tons of programming tool and
> approaches. Amber and Pharo have their own place in this Universe of tools.
>
> And as you said, embrace what we have , be glad for the effort of people
> like Herby's that he invests hard work to make tools like Amber relevant
> and useful and from there on its just a matter of making interfacing with
> other tools easier and simpler.

agreed!

greetings, martin.

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secretary beijinglug.org
mentor fossasia.org
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unix sysadmin
Martin Bähr working in china http://societyserver.org/mbaehr/

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horrido

Re: Why Aren't People Using Smalltalk?

not sure about others, but for me all the things so far about making smalltalk
more popular are not about world domination, but more about making smalltalk
an acceptable choice, so that i am not looked at like a fool for suggesting
smalltalk as a solution.

Exactly!!!!! Absolutely!!!!!

What makes Smalltalk "an acceptable choice?"

1) A large ecosystem, esp. of common libraries. Java/JS/Python developers are always beating me over the head with this! And it hurts!

2) A large enough pool of Smalltalk talent so that companies are not struggling to find hires. Getting Smalltalk into university programs (or high schools!) would be a great start (isn't this how Linux became all the rage?). Phil mentioned Pi Zero...this would be a great way to get kids interested in Smalltalk. (I'm thinking about getting one myself and playing with Raspbian and Squeak. Is Pharo suitable, too, in terms of support?)

On Friday, 4 December 2015 05:09:52 UTC-5, Martin Bähr wrote:

Excerpts from Dimitris Chloupis's message of 2015-12-04 09:54:29 +0100:
> Seriously there is absolutely nothing wrong with Smalltall being unpopular,
> 99.9999% of languages out there are 1000 times more unpopular than
> smalltalk and they are still being used some of them even on a daily basis.
> Languages are tools, not instruments of world domination.

there are two orthogonal goals. world domination is one, and making smalltalk
approachable is another. the latter is a requirement of the former, but the
former is not the only reason to do the latter.

not sure about others, but for me all the things so far about making smalltalk
more popular are not about world domination, but more about making smalltalk
an acceptable choice, so that i am not looked at like a fool for suggesting
smalltalk as a solution. (i am exaggerating here, but you get my point)

i don't mind smalltalk remaining obscure or even completely unknown, but i want
it to shine when taken under scrutiny. and when i do introduce it to my team,
then i don't want them to balk because it is to hard to learn or use.

> We are lucky enough to live in the age of tons of programming tool and
> approaches. Amber and Pharo have their own place in this Universe of tools.
>
> And as you said, embrace what we have , be glad for the effort of people
> like Herby's that he invests hard work to make tools like Amber relevant
> and useful and from there on its just a matter of making interfacing with
> other tools easier and simpler.

agreed!

greetings, martin.

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horrido

Re: Why Aren't People Using Smalltalk?

In reply to this post by kilon.alios

There is at least one thing wrong with Smalltalk being unpopular: the user community has not reached critical mass in order to spur the growth of a rich ecosystem of libraries and frameworks. Smalltalk could be used in vastly more problem domains if supporting libraries were available. You cannot deny that Smalltalk is inapplicable in many business scenarios where Java, C#, and C++ would shine.

Every technologist wants a good, general-purpose programming language to be used as widely as possible, irrespective of popularity. Why would you want to limit a programming language's applicability?

On Friday, 4 December 2015 03:54:39 UTC-5, Dimitris Chloupis wrote:

Seriously there is absolutely nothing wrong with Smalltall being unpopular, 99.9999% of languages out there are 1000 times more unpopular than smalltalk and they are still being used some of them even on a daily basis. Languages are tools, not instruments of world domination.

123