[Pharo-project] Poll: missing libraries to support business
My two cents long time in my blog on exactly the same subject: Its great to see a free version of Smalltalk at last measuring up to the needs of using it in an business sense and showing it to non-Smalltalkerâs and the âIT managersâ and not put them off. I am sure this is going to make it difficult for VA and Cincom to create new small-medium shop sales going forward especially with Seaside, Magritte and raft of other frameworks actually being born in Squeak. There obviously is the crying need for High Priority: Enusure very high reliability of the base Pharo. No bugs that are not fixable by the average developer with a bit of google and sending a few emails. If it needs that one expert in one other end.. business continuity is hugely impacted Primary: * better-faster VM aka Cog mainstream * Highly performant DBMS connectivity natively akin to JDBC through to all DBs no DB specific stuff like now, the Squeak DBX is not business friendly. * Comprehensive Web Services + XMLRPC * Pharo-Groovy bridge and / or Pharo-Ruby bridge ( or can we make Pharo work in tandem with a JVM..! this will help leverage the tons of frameworks in existence even if they are tad slower than native Java) * Configuration Management System plugin for SVN * Acceleration of easy docs and plugins/ web development related framework interfaces from Seaside viz flex/ silverlight: many that are possible as of now, but needs a Smalltalk expert to cobble it up * Have not really gone deeper with Webclient/ FTPClient/ SMTPClient et als. they need to be really simple/ highly reliable/ dumbed down for the average coder to pick snippets and make it work May be lots more.. I can bring in lot more thought this in terms of Generic/ Sectoral or Domain/ Type of Apps preferences viz: Banking/Insurance/Utilities/Technical/ Web vs GUI etc ...So first we should think hard on the segment you want to hit harder.. Secondary: * Better tools for GUI Dev and more standard GUI development capabilities * Make Pharo easily usable for a team of 100+ developers together in one/multiple locations with code synch issues, change / version control , performance ( a host of other stuff included) taken care of. * Pluggable to industry standard tools for development: Rational/ Together Soft viz for UML creation and conversion to code / reverse engineer code to UML Follow through with: * Pluggable with QTP/ Testing Automation tools.. Actually this is very important in the standard large volume development. Makes a huge difference for the risk mitigation for the company. really inexpensive , kind of not so highly technical staff runs this show in comparison to Unit Tests/ test automation through ST code is a more riskier investment and I have not seen in JAva/ .Net / or even Smalltalk large legacy projects unit test done and maintained well enough -Skrish
2010/8/29 Sudhakar Krishnamachari <skrishnamachari@gmail.com>
My two cents long time in my blog on exactly the same subject:
Its great to see a free version of Smalltalk at last measuring up to the needs of using it in an business sense and showing it to non-Smalltalkerâs and the âIT managersâ and not put them off. I am sure this is going to make it difficult for VA and Cincom to create new small-medium shop sales going forward especially with Seaside, Magritte and raft of other frameworks actually being born in Squeak. There obviously is the crying need for
High Priority: Enusure very high reliability of the base Pharo. No bugs that are not fixable by the average developer with a bit of google and sending a few emails. If it needs that one expert in one other end.. business continuity is hugely impacted
Primary: * better-faster VM aka Cog mainstream * Highly performant DBMS connectivity natively
Hi and thanks for the notes. There is NO way to have native Smalltlak driver for propietary databases. Even if I would love to have the database driver implemented in Smalltalk rather than calling a C library, this is not possible with propiertary databases. If you don't have a public protocol or API there is no way to build the driver. Do you think Oracle or Microsoft would do a Smalltalk driver? I doubt it. So....for propietary databases....you have to somehow, use of the the existing database drivers. ALL databases have a driver in C, usually called Database Client Library. C is fast, and we have FFI. That's why SqueakDBX choosed OpenDBX.
akin to JDBC through to all DBs no DB specific stuff like now, the Squeak DBX is not business friendly.
Are you talking about SqueakDBX project ? (http://www.squeakdbx.org/) If so, I would like you say it is not businness friendly.
* Comprehensive Web Services + XMLRPC * Pharo-Groovy bridge and / or Pharo-Ruby bridge ( or can we make Pharo work in tandem with a JVM..! this will help leverage the tons of frameworks in existence even if they are tad slower than native Java) * Configuration Management System plugin for SVN
There is SqueakSVN project. And I think in SCM they are doing to GIT.
* Acceleration of easy docs and plugins/ web development related framework interfaces from Seaside viz flex/ silverlight: many that are possible as of now, but needs a Smalltalk expert to cobble it up * Have not really gone deeper with Webclient/ FTPClient/ SMTPClient et als. they need to be really simple/ highly reliable/ dumbed down for the average coder to pick snippets and make it work
May be lots more.. I can bring in lot more thought this in terms of Generic/ Sectoral or Domain/ Type of Apps preferences viz: Banking/Insurance/Utilities/Technical/ Web vs GUI etc ...So first we should think hard on the segment you want to hit harder..
Secondary: * Better tools for GUI Dev and more standard GUI development capabilities * Make Pharo easily usable for a team of 100+ developers together in one/multiple locations with code synch issues, change / version control , performance ( a host of other stuff included) taken care of.
Agree. Torch project seems that could help here. Altoguht Monticello 2 or similar would be needed.
* Pluggable to industry standard tools for development: Rational/ Together Soft viz for UML creation and conversion to code / reverse engineer code to UML
Carla worked on UML for this year GSoC project. It would probably be integrated soon in Pharo.
Follow through with: * Pluggable with QTP/ Testing Automation tools.. Actually this is very important in the standard large volume development. Makes a huge difference for the risk mitigation for the company. really inexpensive , kind of not so highly technical staff runs this show in comparison to Unit Tests/ test automation through ST code is a more riskier investment and I have not seen in JAva/ .Net / or even Smalltalk large legacy projects unit test done and maintained well enough
-Skrish
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Yes, I would like to know why you think aqueakdbx is not business suitable... this is not in self-defese! we want to improve and your opinion matters :) On 2010-08-29 12:47:15 -0300, Mariano Martinez Peck <marianopeck@gmail.com> said:
2010/8/29 Sudhakar Krishnamachari <skrishnamachari@gmail.com>
My two cents long time in my blog on exactly the same subject:
Its great to see a free version of Smalltalk at last measuring up to the needs of using it in an business sense and showing it to non-Smalltalker= =92s and the =93IT managers=94 and not put them off. I am sure this is going t= o make it difficult for VA and Cincom to create new small-medium shop sales goin= g forward especially with Seaside, Magritte and raft of other frameworks actually being born in Squeak. There obviously is the crying need for
High Priority: Enusure very high reliability of the base Pharo. No bugs that are not fixable by the average developer with a bit of google and sending a few emails. If it needs that one expert in one other end.. business continuit= y is hugely impacted
Primary: * better-faster VM aka Cog mainstream * Highly performant DBMS connectivity natively
Hi and thanks for the notes. There is NO way to have native Smalltlak driver for propietary databases. Even if I would love to have the database driver implemented in Smalltalk rather than calling a C library, this is not possible with propiertary databases. If you don't have a public protocol or API there is no way to build the driver. Do you think Oracle or Microsoft would do a Smalltalk driver? I doubt it. So....for propietary databases....you have to somehow, use of the the existing database drivers.
ALL databases have a driver in C, usually called Database Client Library. C is fast, and we have FFI. That's why SqueakDBX choosed OpenDBX.
akin to JDBC through to all DBs no DB specific stuff like now, the Squeak DBX is not business friendly.
Are you talking about SqueakDBX project ? (http://www.squeakdbx.org/) If so, I would like you say it is not businness friendly.
* Comprehensive Web Services + XMLRPC * Pharo-Groovy bridge and / or Pharo-Ruby bridge ( or can we make Pharo work in tandem with a JVM..! this will help leverage the tons of framewo= rks in existence even if they are tad slower than native Java) * Configuration Management System plugin for SVN
There is SqueakSVN project. And I think in SCM they are doing to GIT.
* Acceleration of easy docs and plugins/ web development related framewor= k interfaces from Seaside viz flex/ silverlight: many that are possible as = of now, but needs a Smalltalk expert to cobble it up * Have not really gone deeper with Webclient/ FTPClient/ SMTPClient et al= s. they need to be really simple/ highly reliable/ dumbed down for the avera= ge coder to pick snippets and make it work
May be lots more.. I can bring in lot more thought this in terms of Generic/ Sectoral or Domain/ Type of Apps preferences viz: Banking/Insurance/Utilities/Technical/ Web vs GUI etc ...So first we shou= ld think hard on the segment you want to hit harder..
Secondary: * Better tools for GUI Dev and more standard GUI development capabilities * Make Pharo easily usable for a team of 100+ developers together in one/multiple locations with code synch issues, change / version control , performance ( a host of other stuff included) taken care of.
Agree. Torch project seems that could help here. Altoguht Monticello 2 or similar would be needed.
* Pluggable to industry standard tools for development: Rational/ Togethe= r Soft viz for UML creation and conversion to code / reverse engineer code = to UML
Carla worked on UML for this year GSoC project. It would probably be integrated soon in Pharo.
Follow through with: * Pluggable with QTP/ Testing Automation tools.. Actually this is very important in the standard large volume development. Makes a huge differen=
ce
for the risk mitigation for the company. really inexpensive , kind of not= so highly technical staff runs this show in comparison to Unit Tests/ test automation through ST code is a more riskier investment and I have not se= en in JAva/ .Net / or even Smalltalk large legacy projects unit test done an= d maintained well enough
-Skrish
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<br><br><div class=3D"gmail_quote">2010/8/29 Sudhakar Krishnamachari <span = dir=3D"ltr"><<a href=3D"mailto:skrishnamachari@gmail.com">skrishnamachar=
i@gmail.com</a>></span><br><blockquote
class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"ma= rgin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding= -left: 1ex;"> My two cents long time in my blog on exactly the same subject:<br><br>Its g= reat to see a free version of Smalltalk at last measuring up to the needs of using it in an business sense and showing it to non-Smalltalker=92s and the =93IT managers=94 and not put them off. I am su= re this is going to make it difficult for VA and Cincom to create new small-medium shop sales going forward especially with Seaside, Magritte and raft of other frameworks actually being born in Squeak. There obviously is the crying need for<br><br>High Priority:<br>Enusure very high= reliability of the base Pharo. No bugs that are not fixable by the average= developer with a bit of google and sending a few emails. If it needs that = one expert in one other end.. business continuity is hugely impacted<br>
<br>Primary:<br>* better-faster VM aka Cog mainstream<br>* Highly performan= t DBMS connectivity natively</blockquote><div><br>Hi and thanks for the notes. <br>There is NO = way to have native Smalltlak driver for propietary databases. Even if I wou= ld love to have the database driver implemented in Smalltalk rather than ca= lling a C library, this is not possible with propiertary databases. If you = don't have a public protocol or API there is no way to build the driver= . Do you think Oracle or Microsoft would do a Smalltalk driver? I doubt it.= =A0 So....for propietary databases....you have to somehow, use of the the e= xisting database drivers. <br> <br>ALL databases have a driver in C, usually called Database Client Librar= y. C is fast, and we have FFI. That's why SqueakDBX choosed OpenDBX. <b= r>=A0</div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0= .8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"> akin to JDBC through to all DBs no DB specific stuff like now, the Squeak = DBX is not business friendly.<br></blockquote><div><br>Are you talking abou= t SqueakDBX project ?=A0 (<a href=3D"http://www.squeakdbx.org/">http://www.= squeakdbx.org/</a>)<br> If so, I would like you say it is not businness friendly. <br><br>=A0</div>= <blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; borde= r-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">* Comprehensive W= eb Services + XMLRPC<br> * Pharo-Groovy bridge and / or Pharo-Ruby bridge ( or can we make Pharo wor= k in tandem with a JVM..!=A0 this will help leverage the tons of frameworks= in existence even if they are tad slower than native Java)<br> * Configuration Management System plugin for SVN<br></blockquote><div><br>T= here is SqueakSVN project. And I think in SCM they are doing to GIT. <br>= =A0</div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8= ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"> * Acceleration of easy docs and plugins/ web development related framework = interfaces from Seaside viz flex/ silverlight: many that are possible as of= now, but needs a Smalltalk expert to cobble it up<br> * Have not really gone deeper with Webclient/ FTPClient/ SMTPClient et als.= they need to be really simple/ highly reliable/ dumbed down for the averag= e coder to pick snippets and make it work<br><br>May be lots more.. I can b= ring in lot more thought this in terms of Generic/ Sectoral or Domain/ Type= of Apps preferences viz: Banking/Insurance/Utilities/Technical/ Web vs GUI= etc ...So first we should think hard on the segment you want to hit harder= .. <br>
<br>Secondary:<br>* Better tools for GUI Dev and more standard GUI developm= ent capabilities<br>* Make Pharo easily usable for a team of 100+ developer= s together in one/multiple locations with code synch issues, change / versi= on control , performance ( a host of other stuff included) taken care of. <= br> </blockquote><div><br>Agree. Torch project seems that could help here. Alto= guht Monticello 2 or similar would be needed.<br>=A0</div><blockquote class= =3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid= rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
* Pluggable to industry standard tools for development: Rational/ Together = Soft viz for UML creation and conversion to code / reverse engineer code to= UML<br></blockquote><div><br><br>Carla worked on UML for this year GSoC pr= oject. It would probably be integrated soon in Pharo.<br> =A0</div><blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8= ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"><br>Foll= ow through with:<br>* Pluggable with QTP/ Testing Automation tools.. Actual= ly this is very important in the standard large volume development. Makes a= huge difference for the risk mitigation for the company. really inexpensiv= e , kind of not so highly technical staff runs this show in comparison to U= nit Tests/ test automation through ST code is a more riskier investment and= I have not seen in JAva/ .Net / or even Smalltalk large legacy projects un= it test done and maintained well enough<br>
<br><br>-Skrish<br><br><br> <br>_______________________________________________<br> Pharo-project mailing list<br> <a href=3D"mailto:Pharo-project@lists.gforge.inria.fr">Pharo-project@lists.=
gforge.inria.fr</a><br> <a
href=3D"http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-proj= ect" target=3D"_blank">http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinf= o/pharo-project</a><br></blockquote></div><br>
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Thanks for your list. Now my comments. Did you guess why I asked this pol? - How can companies expect that all these points will be done if nobody puts money on the table or allocate time of their employee, or open source some of their software? Magic, wishful thinking? - We will do what we can and what is in our critical path. - We are thinking a consortium of companies and institutions that could be willing to help pharo. 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. :)
High Priority: Enusure very high reliability of the base Pharo. No bugs that are not fixable by the average developer with a bit of google and sending a few emails. If it needs that one expert in one other end.. business continuity is hugely impacted
- INRIA is putting 24 months expert engineer on the table and we will clean and simplify the core. Now we will see what will happen.
Primary: * better-faster VM aka Cog mainstream
Teleplace played it the perfect way. I think that they will gain from the help of the community but so far I imagine that they pay every month the salary of people to develop and maintain Cog so again no real magic.
* Highly performant DBMS connectivity natively akin to JDBC through to all DBs no DB specific stuff like now, the Squeak DBX is not business friendly * Comprehensive Web Services + XMLRPC
there is a XMLRPC package that cries to get improved. Just allocate some time and improve it.
* Pharo-Groovy bridge and / or Pharo-Ruby bridge ( or can we make Pharo work in tandem with a JVM..! this will help leverage the tons of frameworks in existence even if they are tad slower than native Java)
There is javaconnect and JNI and I imagine that people are welcomed to help and improve.
* Configuration Management System plugin for SVN * Acceleration of easy docs and plugins/ web development related framework interfaces from Seaside viz flex/ silverlight: many that are possible as of now, but needs a Smalltalk expert to cobble it up
did you discuss that in the seaside mailing-list
* Have not really gone deeper with Webclient/ FTPClient/ SMTPClient et als. they need to be really simple/ highly reliable/ dumbed down for the average coder to pick snippets and make it work
Yes
May be lots more.. I can bring in lot more thought this in terms of Generic/ Sectoral or Domain/ Type of Apps preferences viz: Banking/Insurance/Utilities/Technical/ Web vs GUI etc ...So first we should think hard on the segment you want to hit harder..
Secondary: * Better tools for GUI Dev and more standard GUI development capabilities yes but again...
* Make Pharo easily usable for a team of 100+ developers together in one/multiple locations with code synch issues, change / version control , performance ( a host of other stuff included) taken care of.
There is Monticello. ***we*** are working on a fast binary loader but but but nothing is clear.
* Pluggable to industry standard tools for development: Rational/ Together Soft viz for UML creation and conversion to code / reverse engineer code to UML
why would I spent my time without support to connect with tools that cost thousands dollars a license?
Follow through with: * Pluggable with QTP/ Testing Automation tools.. Actually this is very important in the standard large volume development. Makes a huge difference for the risk mitigation for the company. really inexpensive , kind of not so highly technical staff runs this show in comparison to Unit Tests/ test automation through ST code is a more riskier investment and I have not seen in JAva/ .Net / or even Smalltalk large legacy projects unit test done and maintained well enough
It seems that pharo is the first smalltalk to have a good integration with hudson (thanks guys we know who you are) so there is definitively some good news on that item.
-Skrish
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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. The average company will probably not invest their time on a technology if it does not meet the bar set by the current technology. 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..!!.. 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 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.. 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. ************************* Just count how many smalltalkers we can get in a low cost centers who can code.. well Contrast this with how many Java programmers you can get.. can manage with google/ info base available Count the external frameworks open source developed , tested and trustable to be used in production code from Java nearly all free. Count the same for Smalltalk App servers.. comparable to Websphere/ weblogic/ Tomcat / lots of others, not to mention messaging queue, transaction control , JDBC like framework for nearly all DBs with high performance guaranteed, the list goes on.. The support logistics in terms CMS: viz SVN kinds, better integration / build systems like maven etc.. and evolutions in terms of frameworks that Java has spewed.. .Net in its Visual Studio et als.. Good brains together can counter all of the above arguments, but that is a limitation by itself, you cannot get good 25-50brains in one premises to work together on one single product, even if you do have them you cannot easily replace them with new recruits and be cost effective in general. From an ease of development and risk free managment angle, I find this an impossible proposition to convince any mgmt to take up Smalltalk for their dev. The target is the average developer, the risk averse corporate entity in all its evolution whether its .Net or Java. For all the reasons above, corporate use of ST is a difficult game for niche languages like Smalltalk, but a target I would like to see achieved in the near term.. ********************************* -Skrish On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Sudhakar Krishnamachari < skrishnamachari@gmail.com> wrote:
My two cents long time in my blog on exactly the same subject:
-Skrish
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? http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/Resources/LecturesInPowerpoint/
************************* Just count how many smalltalkers we can get in a low cost centers who can code.. well Contrast this with how many Java programmers you can get.. can manage with google/ info base available
Count the external frameworks open source developed , tested and trustable to be used in production code from Java nearly all free. Count the same for Smalltalk
App servers.. comparable to Websphere/ weblogic/ Tomcat / lots of others, not to mention messaging queue, transaction control , JDBC like framework for nearly all DBs with high performance guaranteed, the list goes on..
The support logistics in terms CMS: viz SVN kinds, better integration / build systems like maven etc.. and evolutions in terms of frameworks that Java has spewed.. .Net in its Visual Studio et als..
Good brains together can counter all of the above arguments, but that is a limitation by itself, you cannot get good 25-50brains in one premises to work together on one single product, even if you do have them you cannot easily replace them with new recruits and be cost effective in general.
From an ease of development and risk free managment angle, I find this an impossible proposition to convince any mgmt to take up Smalltalk for their dev.
The target is the average developer, the risk averse corporate entity in all its evolution whether its .Net or Java.
For all the reasons above, corporate use of ST is a difficult game for niche languages like Smalltalk, but a target I would like to see achieved in the near term..
*********************************
-Skrish
On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 8:32 PM, Sudhakar Krishnamachari <skrishnamachari@gmail.com> wrote: My two cents long time in my blog on exactly the same subject:
-Skrish
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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/
participants (6)
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Esteban Lorenzano -
Mariano Martinez Peck -
Serge Stinckwich -
stephane ducasse -
Stéphane Ducasse -
Sudhakar Krishnamachari