- Pharo-users - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-users] Pillar A4 :)

by stepharo

One on Voyage :)

Jan. 22, 2015

Re: [Pharo-users] Pillar A4 :)

by stepharo

Here is one on Citezen

Jan. 22, 2015

Pillar A4 :)

by stepharo

Hi sven here is one of several that I will send :) Stef

Jan. 22, 2015

Popular

by Ben Coman

I found this article on the popularity of programming languages interesting. http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html It mostly references Lisp, but I think a lot of the same applies to Pharo. It is quite long so I picked a few points that stood out to me: Some non-technical points... * Nothing could be better, for a new technology, than a few years of being used only by a small number of early adopters. Early adopters are sophisticated and demanding, and quickly flush out whatever flaws remain in your technology. When you only have a few users you can be in close contact with all of them. And early adopters are forgiving when you improve your system, even if this causes some breakage. * Users are a double-edged sword. They can help you improve your language, but they can also deter you from improving it. So choose your users carefully, and be slow to grow their number. Having users is like optimization: the wise course is to delay it. * There are two ways new technology gets introduced: the organic growth method, and the big bang method. ... Organic growth seems to yield better technology and richer founders than the big bang method. If you look at the dominant technologies today, you'll find that most of them grew organically. * Hackers have to know about a language before they can use it. How are they to hear? From other hackers. But there has to be some initial group of hackers using the language for others even to hear about it. I wonder how large this group has to be; how many users make a critical mass? Off the top of my head, I'd say twenty. Some technical points... * There is one thing more important than brevity to a hacker: being able to do what you want. In the history of programming languages a surprising amount of effort has gone into preventing programmers from doing things considered to be improper. This is a dangerously presumptuous plan ... The bumbler will shoot himself in the foot anyway ... Good programmers often want to do dangerous and unsavoury things ... give the programmer access to as much internal stuff as you can without endangering runtime systems like the garbage collector. * It might be a good idea to have an active profiler -- to push performance data to the programmer instead of waiting for him to come asking for it. For example, the editor could display bottlenecks in red when the programmer edits the source code. * It might be a good idea to make the byte code an official part of the language, and to allow programmers to use inline byte code in bottlenecks. * The most important part of design is redesign. Programming languages, especially, don't get redesigned enough. cheers -ben

Jan. 22, 2015

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

by blake

>>Without the ability to address the largest number of Smalltalkers, the SRP cannot make any progress.<< Did you do any research on this before embarking? You may not be the first person who has attempted what you're trying. â Often when I'm trying to accomplish something that hasn't previously been attempted or, if attempted, not attained, I find that I've misunderstood where the difficulty lies. In very few cases is it merely a matter of determination. Looking at others' failures can be instructive.

Jan. 22, 2015

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

by horrido

Any language that has a significant user base, ie, a large number of applications, will experience resistance to change. The only way to avoid this is for people NOT to use the language. The fear of popularization will condemn a language to permanent niche status. That's fine, if that's what the user community wants. The language will forever be a "hobbyist" tool. Sean P. DeNigris wrote > > hernanmd wrote >> I am not that convinced Smalltalk should be popular > For me, the goal is "critical mass" - big enough where issues and new > projects move forward with ease. And this is probably just a few hundred > percent. Mass popularity brings in people disconnected from the vision. > Smalltalk for me is prototype Dynabook software. If it was just "a better > programming environment", I'd still use it, but I doubt there would still > be a passionate dream for the future of humanity attached to it... -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Mea-Culpa-tp4800840p4801047.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Jan. 22, 2015

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

by Ben Coman

On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 4:12 AM, horrido <horrido.hobbies(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Okay, so far, I've made two mistakes. First was my lack of sensitivity to > cultural differences around the world. Now that I know better, I shall do > better. > > Second was my failure to distinguish between different subgroups within the > Pharo forum. The reason I chose Pharo forum to discuss my campaign was the > fact that it is the most active Smalltalk forum there is. People who are > interested in Smalltalk join the most active forum generally, and this > includes not only Pharoers, but people from ESUG, Squeak, Cincom, Amber, > Redline, etc. > > So, for example, when I appealed for contributors to the Redline project, I > should've distinguished the target audience as those groups other than > Pharoers. This was my failure and I own up to it. > But targeting a non-Pharoer audience by posting on a Pharo mail list is not a good plan for success. Look at it this way... If mind share leads to success, then definitely Pharo is trying to build mind share. But people have busy lives with room for only a few interests, so someone you draw to Redline may end up one less contributor to Pharo. That may help Redline and Smalltalk, but Pharo loses. > > It is unfortunate that I must use the Pharo forum for this purpose. The > Smalltalk community is so terribly fragmented that there is no universal > Smalltalk forum to address, at least, none that is actually *inhabited*. > Without the ability to address the largest number of Smalltalkers, the SRP > cannot make any progress. I'm sorry, but I have to be blunt. > That is an unfortunate position to be in - but it is not Pharo's problem. That is, it is not Pharo's burden to solve all the ills of the (Smalltalk) world. Indeed, consider that Pharo specifically aspires to be more-than-Smalltalk. Maybe "that" is part of the spark that draws people to overcome preconceptions about Smalltalk (although there are mixed opinions on that, that don't need rehashing right now) Now some of us do have a passing interest in news of other Smalltalks (well usually just Amber in the past) - as long as its short and not too distracting. Again, people are busy and off-topic (i.e. non-Pharo) posts add noise that burns time - and so volume is discouraged. I think it is fair to announce articles that equally discuss Pharo and other Smalltalk dialects in the greater context of Smalltalk, but not directly soliciting people for other projects, no matter your good intentions. > > If anyone can offer a practical alternative, I'd like to hear it. > Otherwise, > the SRP has only two choices: > > 1) Continue what it is doing on the Pharo forum, and be mindful of which > group(s) I am addressing. > I appreciate your ambitions for Smalltalk in general, but I think you risk further conflict using the Pharo forum as a platform to promote Smalltalk in general. It is technically off-topic. Personally I don't want someone "leveraging" our community. I want them "participating" in our community. > > 2) Fold up the campaign and leave the destiny of Smalltalk to the Fates. > Without the ability to reach out to Smalltalkers everywhere, I am > hopelessly > disadvantaged. > Its a tough choice, but there are a few others you might also consider. 3) Connect with each fragment of Smalltalk in their own forums. Obviously more work. 4) Align more closely with Pharo or one of the other Smalltalks. Consider that Smalltalk may be a general concept, and in that moment after you gain someone's attention, it may be better to have one concrete path to follow rather than burning their interest trying to choose a path to take. 5) Stick with it but go slower. I'll start another thread regarding this on the popularity of programming languages. I'll leave you to your considerations. cheers -ben > > Regards, > Richard > >

Jan. 22, 2015

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

by Sean P. DeNigris

hernanmd wrote > I am not that convinced Smalltalk should be popular For me, the goal is "critical mass" - big enough where issues and new projects move forward with ease. And this is probably just a few hundred percent. Mass popularity brings in people disconnected from the vision. Smalltalk for me is prototype Dynabook software. If it was just "a better programming environment", I'd still use it, but I doubt there would still be a passionate dream for the future of humanity attached to it... ----- Cheers, Sean -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Mea-Culpa-tp4800840p4801016.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Jan. 22, 2015

Re: [Pharo-users] Essays

by horrido

Someone mentioned to me that there are some incredible Pharo-related projects coming down the pike, that these developments should be made known to the rest of the world. To which I replied: > Yes, yes, yes! Absolutely! I want Pharo to get this message out there. > > I can help, but I cannot be the only voice. This is why I entreat you to > write about these incredible developments and present them as essays at > our website. I have focussed (or tried to focus) the world's attention on > our web of social media (eg, WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, > LinkedIn). Rather than having your message scattered everywhere, it should > be in one place * > where everybody is drawn to * > . * > That's the power of branding! * > > As I mentioned in a previous post, the amount of published information on > Smalltalk (and Pharo) is voluminous. For me to curate all this information > and summarize it on our website is daunting; I simply don't have enough > time and energy. I need your help. So please, take this unique opportunity to spread your message. Talk about all the great things coming out of Pharo. I will publish your essays and make you look good! You know where to send your submissions. Thanks. horrido wrote > We have a couple of essays published at > Smalltalk renaissance > <https://smalltalkrenaissance.wordpress.com/category/essays/> > . * > We need more. * > > This is our opportunity to answer the questions, concerns, and criticisms > of non-Smalltalk developers, an opportunity afforded by the SRP, which is > drawing much new attention to Smalltalk. We should exploit this > opportunity and not waste it. > > Suggested essay topics include: > > - talk about actual use of Smalltalk in the enterprise > - expand on the much-touted productivity advantage of Smalltalk (many > people are skeptical) > - explain how the experience of using the Smalltalk environment is > superior to that of Eclipse, IntelliJ, Visual Studio, etc. > - talk about future developments in Smalltalk, eg, concurrency features, > new IDEs, new tooling, etc. > - any other topics you may deem noteworthy > > So, please, contribute an essay. / > Without you, there is no campaign. / > > Send all submissions to my personal email: horrido.hobbies at gmail dot > com. > > Thanks. -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Essays-tp4800394p4801004.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Jan. 22, 2015

Re: [Pharo-users] Mea Culpa

by Joachim Tuchel

I don't think there is a need for new lists. We've had comp.lang.smalltalk.advocacy and comp.lang.smalltalk. Currently we leave them to the spammers, and trolls, which is a bad sign for outsiders. Always moving somewhere new and leave old trash around doesn't improve anything, does it? Joachim Am 22.01.2015 13:41 schrieb Bernat Romagosa <tibabenfortlapalanca(a)gmail.com>: > > Hey Richard, > > I believe the only alive cross-dialect space is the #smalltalk IRC channel in FreeNode. There's an average of 25~30 people online in that channel, which is not _too_ bad considering the size of our community. Still, compare that to, say, #lisp, with ~400 users and also being a cross-dialect channel. > > Smalltalkers feel quite strong about their particular dialect. I'm not criticizing this behavior, I'm just stating facts. I also have strong feelings for "my dialects" and I don't think this is necessarily bad. > > However, there are some "de-facto" meeting points for all Smalltalks, like http://world.st. Even though there is no mailing list that joins all of us together, this space does feature a homogenized list of all forums (http://forum.world.st/) Planet Smalltalk (http://planet.smalltalk.org/) is another great one for those of us who use RSS feeds. > > Indeed, it could take quite a while before a generic Smalltalk list was populated enough, but these two efforts show there might be an interest. > > Cheers, > Bernat. > > 2015-01-22 9:11 GMT+01:00 Martin BÃ¤hr <mbaehr(a)email.archlab.tuwien.ac.at>: >> >> Excerpts from kilon alios's message of 2015-01-22 08:13:57 +0100: >> > Popularity indeed comes with a high price. Guido the creator of python he >> > has said in one of his presentation that there many people who want to add >> > their libraries to python distribution but they should not want to do that, >> > because once a library is added it become very difficult to change since so >> > many people depend on it to keep backward compatibility. He claimed that >> > even simple bug fixes have to go through lengthy review process. This can >> > be expanded to the entirety of the IDE and the language. >> > >> > This the most important reason why pharo has been moving forward so fast >> > and why popular languages move at glacial speed. >> > I dont want to lose that so yes I dont want for pharo to become popular. >> >> squeak already hast that 'problem' i believe and pharo is actively working to >> counteract it by removing less important things. so i doubt pharo will suffer >> from the pressure to fill it up with new packages any time soon. >> >> in this case it may be a win for all because those who want backwards >> compatibility can choose squeak, and those who want fast paced action may use >> pharo. >> >> also craig with context is working on minimizing the images which i believe >> should help to move more and more things out of the core, allowing you to pull >> them back in, making it possible to choose from various versions, based on your >> compatibility needs. >> >> ironically, i actually expect to want backwards compatibility in the future. >> but backwards to now, not to a decade ago, so i hope pharo development will >> eventually slow down somewhat. >> >> in addition, the multiple smalltalk implementations also act as a stabilizing >> factor, because people will want to write code that runs on all of them. >> (seaside for example) so pharo can't go that far out of line and make itself >> completely incompatible. >> >> i am also not sure which is better. a large standard library makes for a more stable system. >> having lots of important 3rd party libraries can lead to dependency issues... >> >> greetings, martin. >> >> -- >> eKitaÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â -Â Â the online platform for your entire academic life >> -- >> chief engineerÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â eKita.co >> pike programmerÂ Â Â pike.lysator.liu.seÂ Â caudium.netÂ Â Â societyserver.org >> secretaryÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â beijinglug.org >> mentorÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â fossasia.org >> foresight developerÂ foresightlinux.orgÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â realss.com >> unix sysadmin >> Martin BÃ¤hrÂ Â Â Â Â working in chinaÂ Â Â Â http://societyserver.org/mbaehr/ >> > > > > -- > Bernat Romagosa.

Jan. 22, 2015