Hi,
I gave last week a talk at NDC Oslo on
"Don't demo facts. Demo stories!". While the talk is
less technical, I did exemplified the message by
demoing Spotter in comparison with the search support
from Eclipse.
There are several things I would like to
emphasize.
I compared our solution with an "industry
standard" one. We often think our system as being
niche and perhaps not mature enough. We need to change
that perception about our work. We build state of the
art.
One thing that I did not mention
explicitly in the talk is the size of the
implementation. The Spotter implementation is 3500
lines of code -- and that it is so large because it
currently comes with its own widgets. Furthermore, the
extensions average 8 lines per custom processor
(including the method header and the pragma). This is
orders of magnitude smaller than what is typically out
there, and it is precisely the reason why we can
compete even if we are fewer.
But, to get out there and compete we have
to set that high goal for ourselves. For example, with
GT we do not want to compete. We want to outcompete.
So can you.
While details are important, high goals
require us to get away from those details. Only
polishing details will tend to limit you to
incremental improvements. We need to jump from time to
time. But, these jumps are hard. On the one hand, it
is hard to find the right jump and convince people to
jump with you. On the other hand, they are hard to
predict. For example, Spotter would have not been
predictable one year ago.
Yet, dry goals are not enough to keep us
going. We need stories that make us dream. And the
beauty is that Pharo breaths such a story. We should
not limit ourselves to that story only. For example,
with GT we want to reinvent the developer experience
by making the developer be able to mold visual tools
to her context because that is the only effective way
to build sustainable systems. This little point of
view will turn the IDE upside down, and this is only
possible in a system like Pharo.
Choose your high goal and tell its story
through the system that you build. And remember that
Pharo already offers a beautiful story to start from.
Cheers,
Doru
--
"Every thing has its own flow"