[Pharo-project] Increase populatity of Pharo by doing some Killer-OpenSource-Tools
Hi Stefan, I'm not sure if it is a killer app that is required to get more visibility for Pharo or a better adoption of Smalltalk. We already have nice open-source apps ranging from Seaside, Pier, Moose, Swiki, ... up to other Smalltalk apps that are sucessfull also in business life. Look at JPMorgans Kapital project done in VW, other big Smalltalk projects or the Pharo success stories [2] meanwhile known to the world. Still Smalltalk is very unknown among developers ... I agree with Dave Thomas who said that the object abstraction is too complex for the majority of programmers. [1] Most people are happy with (boring) CRUD applications and I doubt a killer app implemented in Smalltalk will change this. Most of them see no need for switching from Java, C#, ... Not that I would not want to see Trac/Bugzilla/... one-click replacements done in Smalltalk - but building them will eat up our resources to build something that should be even better than current Smalltalks. I doubt that Pharo will become the "next big thing". I'm not sad about that since most hype technologies will easily fade away when the next hype comes up. Maybe you remember auctomatic.com - these guys have built an app with Seaside and sold the company for lots of money. So it must have been a killer app. One of them (Patrick) shares some nice thoughts on his page [3] - if you replace "auctomatic" with Pharo and "ebay" with one of the mainstream technologies like Java it is an interesting guide for a future of Pharo too. Especially regarding internationalization which is I think an interesting area to get more people into Smalltalk. Bye Torsten [1] http://smalltalk-bob.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-needs-objects.html [2] http://www.pharo-project.org/about/success-stories [3] http://patrickcollison.com/blog/2009/10/surprises -- Empfehlen Sie GMX DSL Ihren Freunden und Bekannten und wir belohnen Sie mit bis zu 50,- Euro! https://freundschaftswerbung.gmx.de
On 2012-03-09, at 17:11, Torsten Bergmann wrote:
Hi Stefan,
I'm not sure if it is a killer app that is required to get more visibility for Pharo or a better adoption of Smalltalk.
We already have nice open-source apps ranging from Seaside, Pier, Moose, Swiki, ... up to other Smalltalk apps that are sucessfull also in business life.
Look at JPMorgans Kapital project done in VW, other big Smalltalk projects or the Pharo success stories [2] meanwhile known to the world. Still Smalltalk is very unknown among developers ...
we need visibility... the image as a sole source does not help here, most programmers like files and scripts and their common editors :) - use common tools (github for instance will be available soon on Pharo) - get indexable documentation (google doesn't seem to like squeaksource that much) :) - we need better system integration (accessing ENV vars and program args is still a bit messy in Pharo) - we need an embeddable VM (I guess that is also on the way :))
I agree with Dave Thomas who said that the object abstraction is too complex for the majority of programmers. [1] Most people are happy with (boring) CRUD applications and I doubt a killer app implemented in Smalltalk will change this. Most of them see no need for switching from Java, C#, ...
look at ruby with ruby on rails, people seem to like it despite the heavy meta programming used in it => we need a decent scripting api (almost there with coral)
Not that I would not want to see Trac/Bugzilla/... one-click replacements done in Smalltalk - but building them will eat up our resources to build something that should be even better than current Smalltalks.
that might be true, but looking at pharo I seem we still lack some basic tools of a modern programming language. However we made a massive progress over the last years ;)
I doubt that Pharo will become the "next big thing". I'm not sad about that since most hype technologies will easily fade away when the next hype comes up.
Maybe you remember auctomatic.com - these guys have built an app with Seaside and sold the company for lots of money. So it must have been a killer app.
One of them (Patrick) shares some nice thoughts on his page [3] - if you replace "auctomatic" with Pharo and "ebay" with one of the mainstream technologies like Java it is an interesting guide for a future of Pharo too. Especially regarding internationalization which is I think an interesting area to get more people into Smalltalk.
Bye Torsten
[1] http://smalltalk-bob.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-needs-objects.html [2] http://www.pharo-project.org/about/success-stories [3] http://patrickcollison.com/blog/2009/10/surprises
-- Empfehlen Sie GMX DSL Ihren Freunden und Bekannten und wir belohnen Sie mit bis zu 50,- Euro! https://freundschaftswerbung.gmx.de
On 9 March 2012 18:49, Camillo Bruni <camillobruni@gmail.com> wrote:
On 2012-03-09, at 17:11, Torsten Bergmann wrote:
Hi Stefan,
I'm not sure if it is a killer app that is required to get more visibility for Pharo or a better adoption of Smalltalk.
We already have nice open-source apps ranging from Seaside, Pier, Moose, Swiki, ... up to other Smalltalk apps that are sucessfull also in business life.
Look at JPMorgans Kapital project done in VW, other big Smalltalk projects or the Pharo success stories [2] meanwhile known to the world. Still Smalltalk is very unknown among developers ...
we need visibility... the image as a sole source does not help here, most programmers like files and scripts and their common editors :)
every time i hear sentences about "my favorite editor" i thinking about creating a new text editor project and with a name "WriteOwn". WriteOwn text editor.
- use common tools (github for instance will be available soon on Pharo) - get indexable documentation (google doesn't seem to like squeaksource that much) :) - we need better system integration (accessing ENV vars and program args is still a bit messy in Pharo) - we need an embeddable VM (I guess that is also on the way :))
I agree with Dave Thomas who said that the object abstraction is too complex for the majority of programmers. [1] Most people are happy with (boring) CRUD applications and I doubt a killer app implemented in Smalltalk will change this. Most of them see no need for switching from Java, C#, ...
look at ruby with ruby on rails, people seem to like it despite the heavy meta programming used in it
=> we need a decent scripting api (almost there with coral)
Not that I would not want to see Trac/Bugzilla/... one-click replacements done in Smalltalk - but building them will eat up our resources to build something that should be even better than current Smalltalks.
that might be true, but looking at pharo I seem we still lack some basic tools of a modern programming language. However we made a massive progress over the last years ;)
I doubt that Pharo will become the "next big thing". I'm not sad about that since most hype technologies will easily fade away when the next hype comes up.
Maybe you remember auctomatic.com - these guys have built an app with Seaside and sold the company for lots of money. So it must have been a killer app.
One of them (Patrick) shares some nice thoughts on his page [3] - if you replace "auctomatic" with Pharo and "ebay" with one of the mainstream technologies like Java it is an interesting guide for a future of Pharo too. Especially regarding internationalization which is I think an interesting area to get more people into Smalltalk.
Bye Torsten
[1] http://smalltalk-bob.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-needs-objects.html [2] http://www.pharo-project.org/about/success-stories [3] http://patrickcollison.com/blog/2009/10/surprises
-- Empfehlen Sie GMX DSL Ihren Freunden und Bekannten und wir belohnen Sie mit bis zu 50,- Euro! https://freundschaftswerbung.gmx.de
-- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.
Hi Torsten, my theory is simple: people working in Softwaredevelopment-Departments are somehow techies. So if they see pharo in action and have the ability to use it in a way that is uncritical for the business - they would try it out. Of course they can't decide to use pharo/ seaside for the next project (if the main development environment in that enterprise is Java or .NET). But maybe they can decide to use a Ticketing-system for one of their next projects, which is built on pharo. So they can play around with it, try to enhance it, have fun with it, love it. Exactly like the people who have to play around with Trac, adjust some python-code, enhance it (and hate it). I don't think of pharo as the next-big-thing, but if developers start to use it for little things of their daily work, they will use it for real-projects too. Someday. regards, Stefan Am 9. März 2012 17:11 schrieb Torsten Bergmann <astares@gmx.de>:
Hi Stefan,
I'm not sure if it is a killer app that is required to get more visibility for Pharo or a better adoption of Smalltalk.
We already have nice open-source apps ranging from Seaside, Pier, Moose, Swiki, ... up to other Smalltalk apps that are sucessfull also in business life.
Look at JPMorgans Kapital project done in VW, other big Smalltalk projects or the Pharo success stories [2] meanwhile known to the world. Still Smalltalk is very unknown among developers ...
I agree with Dave Thomas who said that the object abstraction is too complex for the majority of programmers. [1] Most people are happy with (boring) CRUD applications and I doubt a killer app implemented in Smalltalk will change this. Most of them see no need for switching from Java, C#, ...
Not that I would not want to see Trac/Bugzilla/... one-click replacements done in Smalltalk - but building them will eat up our resources to build something that should be even better than current Smalltalks.
I doubt that Pharo will become the "next big thing". I'm not sad about that since most hype technologies will easily fade away when the next hype comes up.
Maybe you remember auctomatic.com - these guys have built an app with Seaside and sold the company for lots of money. So it must have been a killer app.
One of them (Patrick) shares some nice thoughts on his page [3] - if you replace "auctomatic" with Pharo and "ebay" with one of the mainstream technologies like Java it is an interesting guide for a future of Pharo too. Especially regarding internationalization which is I think an interesting area to get more people into Smalltalk.
Bye Torsten
[1] http://smalltalk-bob.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-needs-objects.html [2] http://www.pharo-project.org/about/success-stories [3] http://patrickcollison.com/blog/2009/10/surprises
-- Empfehlen Sie GMX DSL Ihren Freunden und Bekannten und wir belohnen Sie mit bis zu 50,- Euro! https://freundschaftswerbung.gmx.de
I generalized the problem (because is not a problem exclusive to our community) so here I wrote a couple of thoughts on the subject: Money and Popularity are Distractions [1] about abstractions: is hard for most because education is broken. People is indoctrinated to obey and shut up instead of creating new better systems (that require Systemic Thinking, which will make natural use of abstraction among many other skills). Education is being revolutionized worldwide as we speak so I say we shouldn't worry about it, Smalltalk is brain-ergonomic-computing, all we have to do is to keep supporting that revolution with our great tool made even better (Hint: usability glitches). about big businesses: Cows eat grass, flies eat ... and most people is only smart enough to be impressed by big quantities of money. So yes, if we have enough huge cases of startups being bought by google (or whatever exit strategy that makes investors rich) our popularity will grow. But, as I mention in that post, it's only a distraction. A good one once it happens, there is no question about it, but let things flow. We are not there yet. Don't let the charming money game distract you. Unless you are right now in the subgroup of the 1% that's a VC or an angel or a superangel, you are not one of those players. If you are, that's great, help smalltalkers to improve their entrepreneurial skills (they could be great tech co-founders). So.. Usability and reliability are the areas we need to be serious about. Usability of what? Usability of a tool that provides a smooth experience to be a startup hero. Trust this: people will be infinitely hungry of such a tool. So let's meditate on the bumps we are providing now to people trying to "startupize" some problems with Pharo. cheers sebastian o/ PS: also let's think about the iOS market. If any professional has a paying client asking for an iPad application he/she can't currently do it with Pharo. There is a big money market right there (in the middle of a lagging economy) and we are not doing enough about it? how smart is that? PSS: when I talk on startups I mean democratized solutions. Don't think only on startups that got invested. Bootstrappers also counts (actually, they have even more moral credit). [1] http://sebastianconcept.com/brandIt/money-and-popularity-are-distractions On Mar 9, 2012, at 1:11 PM, Torsten Bergmann wrote:
Hi Stefan,
I'm not sure if it is a killer app that is required to get more visibility for Pharo or a better adoption of Smalltalk.
We already have nice open-source apps ranging from Seaside, Pier, Moose, Swiki, ... up to other Smalltalk apps that are sucessfull also in business life.
Look at JPMorgans Kapital project done in VW, other big Smalltalk projects or the Pharo success stories [2] meanwhile known to the world. Still Smalltalk is very unknown among developers ...
I agree with Dave Thomas who said that the object abstraction is too complex for the majority of programmers. [1] Most people are happy with (boring) CRUD applications and I doubt a killer app implemented in Smalltalk will change this. Most of them see no need for switching from Java, C#, ...
Not that I would not want to see Trac/Bugzilla/... one-click replacements done in Smalltalk - but building them will eat up our resources to build something that should be even better than current Smalltalks.
I doubt that Pharo will become the "next big thing". I'm not sad about that since most hype technologies will easily fade away when the next hype comes up.
Maybe you remember auctomatic.com - these guys have built an app with Seaside and sold the company for lots of money. So it must have been a killer app.
One of them (Patrick) shares some nice thoughts on his page [3] - if you replace "auctomatic" with Pharo and "ebay" with one of the mainstream technologies like Java it is an interesting guide for a future of Pharo too. Especially regarding internationalization which is I think an interesting area to get more people into Smalltalk.
Bye Torsten
[1] http://smalltalk-bob.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-needs-objects.html [2] http://www.pharo-project.org/about/success-stories [3] http://patrickcollison.com/blog/2009/10/surprises
-- Empfehlen Sie GMX DSL Ihren Freunden und Bekannten und wir belohnen Sie mit bis zu 50,- Euro! https://freundschaftswerbung.gmx.de
Ok, I have succumbed and will post a quick reply ... although I realize this looks like one of those threads where a lot of people say "we need to do this ... or ... we need to do what xyz does" and as Stef often - and rightly so - says, don't just talk but roll up your sleeves and do something :) Anyhow, I reckon Pharo has already come a long way since I started following the Smalltalk community ... I know some people like them but I cringed at the pastel colored screens. Pharo's biggest problem is still bad UX i.e. User eXperience. The latest Nautilus browser is only marginally better than the alternatives, but it hasn't really evolved much from the browsers from the 70's. From a usability point of view, Pharo and its browsers are not intuitive and don't look cool enough to attract more new blood and increase its popularity. Having said that, I am actually more interested to see things like SmalltalkHub launched and whatever can be done to make web app development in Smalltalk easier with things like Amber Smalltalk. People want to make web apps and finding somewhere cheap to host your stuff is much easier when using RoR, Django or whatever rather than Seaside, AIDA or Iliad. -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Increase-populatity-of-Pharo-by-doing-some-Killer-Open... Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
On 9 March 2012 22:41, Geert Claes <geert.wl.claes@gmail.com> wrote:
Ok, I have succumbed and will post a quick reply ... although I realize this looks like one of those threads where a lot of people say "we need to do this ... or ... we need to do what xyz does" and as Stef often - and rightly so - says, don't just talk but roll up your sleeves and do something :)
Anyhow, I reckon Pharo has already come a long way since I started following the Smalltalk community ... I know some people like them but I cringed at the pastel colored screens. Â Pharo's biggest problem is still bad UX i.e. User eXperience. Â The latest Nautilus browser is only marginally better than the alternatives, but it hasn't really evolved much from the browsers from the 70's. Â From a usability point of view, Pharo and its browsers are not intuitive and don't look cool enough to attract more new blood and increase its popularity.
Well, cool is not synonim of useful. But i agree: cool and useful is way better than just useful or just cool.
Having said that, I am actually more interested to see things like SmalltalkHub launched and whatever can be done to make web app development in Smalltalk easier with things like Amber Smalltalk. Â People want to make web apps and finding somewhere cheap to host your stuff is much easier when using RoR, Django or whatever rather than Seaside, AIDA or Iliad.
-- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Increase-populatity-of-Pharo-by-doing-some-Killer-Open... Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
-- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.
Guys guys guys There is one rule. Only one. Each time you do something today you do not have to do it tomorrow and you are probably better now than tomorrow. If ****every**** single day you should spend 20 min doing something for pharo or for a pharo related project you do not imagine in a year from now were we would be. So take something you like, a little hammer and everyday hammer hammer and hammer it. Stef
It should not. As Paul Graham described it in its startup project with Lisp, Smalltalk is our secret advantage over the competition to achieve better result at lower cost. Hilaire Le 09/03/2012 17:11, Torsten Bergmann a écrit :
I doubt that Pharo will become the "next big thing". I'm not sad about that since most hype technologies will easily fade away when the next hype comes up.
-- Dr. Geo -- http://www.drgeo.eu
participants (8)
-
Camillo Bruni -
Geert Claes -
Hilaire Fernandes -
Igor Stasenko -
Sebastian Sastre -
Stefan Krecher -
Stéphane Ducasse -
Torsten Bergmann