On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 4:57 PM, Stéphane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse@inria.fr> wrote:
On Aug 30, 2010, at 4:28 AM, Sudhakar Krishnamachari wrote:
Good to see some of the concerns addressed.
" Now so far I do not see companies really putting effort so may be nothing will happen but this will not be    because of us. :)"
This is the chicken and egg situation. Bar highly motivated startups with some money in their pockets to splurge on with. The average co consists of average managers who want no risk..!. They want a technology they can blame for its shortcomings/ the support offered by another co if they are stuck for a fix. But in most ( I would say 90+% of timeline) cases the business continuity should not be affected.
Sure this is clear. Now my point is pragmatic.
The average company will probably not invest their time on a technology if it does not meet the bar set by the current technology.
Well lot of companies are using seaside and pharo and as such the fact that the infrastructure is getting better is important.
Let me take Spring Architecture as an example in the Java world. J2EE was ( and to an extent is) entrenched in the world of Java enterprise. Way back about 8 yrs back or so .. Rod Johnson started his foray in to simplifying the complexity of J2EE with his framework. I would say through atleast 4+ yrs of the 8 he would have close to nil support from any company and like the Jim Collins "Good to Great" simile built up the giant wheel momentum now to engage nearly all known companies to use Spring all through instead of J2EE except in the niche cases. Its is an instruction to notice how Spring got interfaces to nearly all of Java connected that would be possibly needed for a medium enterprise case and then went into the depths/ specialization etc.. that is breadth first and then the depth.
So I would say "WE" (including myself as a avowed Smaltalker) need to keep trying and pushing for a concerted go at getting Pharo up there.. and possibly the "GiantWheel momentum" will kick in with first a few co's and then more.. to push this rolling with god speed to its eventual greatness..!!..
welcome!
And that indeed is happening and its suprised me how far Pharo has already rolled and is building a momentum that is sure to go far if I can put my little effort as all others to get some of the minimal frameworks integrated.
we need help
We have either of two approaches to take: meet up to the current bar set by Java/ .Net world in terms of programming baseline ( as I listed in the prior mail) or take a radical approach that differs so much and offers so much to pull in others..like Rails did. I would say if we are interested in the numbers game I would choose the former, if we wish to retain the intellectual high ground and move on the latter is fine..
we can have a vision, a vision without action does not exist. What we are doing are     - providing robust infrastructure     - making the system lean and clean     - slowly rewriting parts now if people with other agendas want to focus on other parts we are more than happy.
To get the numbers to have an interest in  Pharo I will go back to my charter for Smalltalk spread in Universities / Colleges ( the underlying reason I started SmalltalkIndia) and see how far it can be resuscitated to create a mass base of users ( even if they are amateurs) and then hope a good percentage of them retain a greater interest to contribute spare time to improve the frameworks in Pharo.
Would be great. Let me know how I can help Do you know I have free slides? Â Â Â Â http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/Resources/LecturesInPowerpoint/
Great Skrish ! Can you say a bit more on your indian Smalltalk User Group ? Do you have any website ? I'm located in Vietnam (Ha Noi) and want to foster Smalltalk in Asia (especially in South-East Asia). I just spend 2 weeks in Japan and meet some Japanese Smalltalkers in Tokyo. I'm also interested to visit India to meet Smalltalkers in 2011. Regards, -- Serge Stinckwich UMI UMMISCO 209 (IRD/UPMC), Hanoi, Vietnam Every DSL ends up being Smalltalk http://doesnotunderstand.org/