Tudor, You say that we are talking about different mails. I hope so. "We need to focus on building a great platform." "acting is the only thing that will push us further.". I agree that action is what achieves things. To make sure the correct actions are taken, in a productive and efficient way, it can be valuable to take stock and think, periodically. It is important to carry out a variety of actions, not solely coding. Too narrow a focus on keeping a small group of people coding as fast as they can is not the fastest path to the end goal. It can easily lead to improving the platform at a slower rate than other great platforms are improving - a process of relative decay. I would like to help with community building efforts. But unless the leaders of the community also help and prioritise such efforts, they are unlikely to make any difference. There is no point gaining the interest of new people unless we have mechanisms in place to make them welcome, and put them on the path to becoming valuable contributors to the community. Small communities with low levels of resource must, to succeed, do things more efficiently than large groups with lots of funding. Currently, we lack: 1) debugged beginner's training materials. 2) community processes for getting the interest of new people 3) community processes for onboarding interested new people with the lowest loss rate 4) community processes for providing positive feedback and encouragement to people taking these actions. 5) community processes for stopping bit-rot in mature libraries and facilities - including key facilities like SqueakSource, Smalltalkhub and SqueakSource3 6) community processes to help focus resources on merging libraries into a single best-of-breed best-of-breed mature libraries. We often have two competing incomplete libraries for any given problem space, e.g. Spec/Bloc, MuTalk / SMutant 7) community processes to document the community processes 8) documented processes for bringing newcomers up to speed with "the way things are done round here" We need to take these issues seriously - they affect how fast things get done around here much more than this amount of time away from decoding Pharo-core does Closing down all discussions where these issues surface does not communicate "We welcome any action that anyone would want to undertake in this direction". Quite the reverse. We need to do more than just Smalltalk the Smalltalk - we need to walk the walk. Cheers, Euan Here is the thread I am keeping alive: On 30 November 2015 at 23:32, Tudor Girba <tudor@tudorgirba.com> wrote:
In any case, please name you thread appropriately. And, we should remember that acting is the only thing that will push us further.
On Dec 1, 2015, at 12:18 AM, EuanM <euanmee@gmail.com> wrote: Welcoming is, as welcoming does.
On 30 November 2015 at 11:20, Tudor Girba <tudor@tudorgirba.com> wrote:
Increasing the community is certainly important, and we welcome any action that anyone would want to undertake in this direction.
On Nov 30, 2015, at 4:44 AM, EuanM <euanmee@gmail.com> wrote: We also need to concentrate on building our community.
We build a better platform faster if we have more people.
We build a more valuable platform if we have a wider range of valuable use cases to target.
Unless and until we hit a critical mass of people joining our community, we *need* to spend some of our focus on community-building.
Part of great is being able to build things to sufficient completeness *and* keep them in working order over the long haul. This is easier with more contributors.
On Nov 27, 2015, at 10:05 PM, EuanM <euanmee@gmail.com> wrote: We *should* wish to take advantage of [the rumoured Java] announcement.
After all, think what difference having even 0.01% of the world's Java coders moving to Smalltalk would make. How could we help that happen?
[Full thread at foot of mail] ==================== On 30 November 2015 at 23:32, Tudor Girba <tudor@tudorgirba.com> wrote:
Hi,
I think we are not talking about the same email.
In any case, please name you thread appropriately. And, we should remember that acting is the only thing that will push us further.
Cheers, Tudor
On Dec 1, 2015, at 12:18 AM, EuanM <euanmee@gmail.com> wrote:
Tudor, the email that you replied to, saying the discussion should be closed down, was specifically about the impacts on our community and how to leverage them.
Welcoming is, as welcoming does.
On 30 November 2015 at 11:20, Tudor Girba <tudor@tudorgirba.com> wrote:
Hi,
Increasing the community is certainly important, and we welcome any action that anyone would want to undertake in this direction.
However, talking about the future of Java does not fall in this category.
Cheers, Doru
On Nov 30, 2015, at 4:44 AM, EuanM <euanmee@gmail.com> wrote:
We also need to concentrate on building our community.
We build a better platform faster if we have more people.
We build a more valuable platform if we have a wider range of valuable use cases to target.
Unless and until we hit a critical mass of people joining our community, we *need* to spend some of our focus on community-building.
Part of great is being able to build things to sufficient completeness *and* keep them in working order over the long haul. This is easier with more contributors.
On 27 November 2015 at 21:27, Tudor Girba <tudor@tudorgirba.com> wrote:
Hello everyone,
Please stop this thread on this mailing list. We need to focus on building a great platform.
Cheers, Doru
On Nov 27, 2015, at 10:05 PM, EuanM <euanmee@gmail.com> wrote:
First of all - is this true? Where can we read about it?
I cannot find anything about this at https://www.oracle.com/search/press
=======================================
If Oracle did make this statement, then what people have said so far is true. BUT...
Java got about 40% of its initial momentum from IBM dumping VisualAge and putting all their resources into Java.
Oracle are targetting this move at IBM more than anyone else.
IBM will start to think about how to migrate from Java - as Oracle are telling them they will have to. (It's OUR bat and its OUR ball, and no-one else can play with it. Not even the Java Community). And IBM's coders do not pay for Java, Eclipse users do not pay for Java. I expect the licence-fee income for JREs is small.
Oracle are doing one of two things - announcing that Java is for sale to device providers - phones (Google is the obvious buyer) or the impending Internet of Things (which was what Java was designed for originally) or announcing that no-one making an internet of things offering should consider Java.
Yes, things live on and on in a kind of zombie state. So yes, things live on as long as their ecosystem does. And they gently wither and their ecosystem withers is a long slow drawn out spiral. Which is why we still have Cobol.
People and organisations tend to move from one technology to another in an incremental fashion. Swapping a little bit here, and a little bit there.
The new target platforms are ones which 1) look like they have longevity, and 2) have a migration pathway that provides incremental steps.
Offering a compelling advantage is good - but only if the steps 1) and 2) are catered to.
IBM VisualAge Smalltalk is still robust, commercially available software, and VisualStudio and Gemstone continue to represent Smalltalk out to the big world of corporate development.
So that's a start.
Say only 5% of the Java world moves away from Java each year, as a result of this announcement.
We *should* wish to take advantage of this announcement.
After all, think what difference having even 0.01% of the world's Java coders moving to Smalltalk would make. How could we help that happen?
Think what it would be like to have thought-leaders like Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham back in the Smalltalk fold. How could we help that happen?
Think what it would be like to get back all the universities who moved from teaching OO concepts using Smalltalk into teaching them via Java. We now know almost all the ones using Smalltalk as a teaching language by name. Does anyone know even how many universities teach OO via Java? What would it be like if 5% of those universities moved to Smalltalk each year. How could we help that happen?
Next - do we have any big brained thinkers who can see specific ways we can improve interoperation between Java facilities and libraries and the Smalltalks? For the next 12 months, we should work on Java integration, rather than C++ integration. We should identify the three best things for us to do in this regard, and make them polished and compelling. Who is in a position to help that happen?
The final way we can take advantage help the maximum number of people find their way to us is to present a united community front to the outside world. In the same way I am both a European and a Scot, we need to be Smalltalkers *and*members of our individual Smalltalk-platform communities.
How can we help make that happen?
This is not a silver bullet. It's going to cause a long-term trend in events, not a sudden abrupt change. But it will have a real, if gradual effect. (assuming that
Equally, it is not something we should ignore. It is something we should make use of. We need to put effort into raising our profile over the next 6 months.