Btw, did Self ever work?�� At all?�� The last I remember it was in a similar state to Electron without the M$ adds in Visual Studio, i.e. the samples from the site don���t build.
Sent from Mail for Windows 10
From: Thierry Goubier
Sent: Monday, November 6, 2017 2:48 PM
To: pharo-users@lists.pharo.org
Subject: Re: [Pharo-users] perspective request for those earningalivingfromSmalltalk
Hi Andrew,
Le 06/11/2017 �� 19:59, Andrew Glynn a ��crit :
> I /suspect/ that a (mostly repressed) underlying sense that a reliable,
> inexpensive platform, if popular, would have been more detrimental to
> IBM than to its smaller competitors. The same goes for the VisualAge
> family -> Smalltalk (sold now by Instantiations at v. 9.0), Java, C++
> and COBOL. One of the (largely unthought) reasons for Smalltalk���s
> difficulties in the 1990���s, when hardware could run it decently, was
> that it took a fair number of resources/time to write a decent version,
> while using it would have been a bigger advantage to smaller companies
> than to the companies with the money to develop one. The result was
> that only a few, very expensive versions were publicly available. VA
> Smalltalk still retails at ~$8500 / seat.
>
> Those kinds of hazy (because not admitted to oneself) reasons for doing
> things end up resulting in apparently contradictory actions such as
> spending large amounts writing something, releasing it, then failing to
> support it with any sales or marketing push, and even actively
> undermining it. Nobody wants to fully admit that inefficiencies are
> actually to their advantage, which is the reason it���s repressed
> (implying both known /and/ not known, simultaneously).
>
> I���m totally speculating of course and may be dead wrong, but it fits
> with other IBM actions and non-actions. IBM is a strange company that
> sees itself, partly for good reason, as a business that must make money
> /and/ as an international resource that must continue to exist. Though
> the latter depends to a degree on the former, they don���t always imply
> the same specific decisions.
>
> Interestingly, to prove the scalability of a VM based system IBM wrote
> ���RVM��� (originally meaning ���Renaissance VM���), and proved near linear
> scaling to 1024 cores, but RVM is a VM for Squeak and earlier versions
> of Pharo, not IBM Smalltalk (the source is available, on GitHub I believe).
https://github.com/smarr/RoarVM
I wouldn't say it is IBM, instead that it is David Ungar work (of Self
and a few other things)...
Has probably ties to the Jikes RVM as well.
> Arca Noae (meaning ���New Box���), the company that released v.5.0 in June,
> was set up because too many big customers can���t migrate crucial apps
> from OS/2 to anything else. The new version looks more modern,
> borrowing icons and other things from Linux, mainly KDE. It can run a
> fair number of Win32 apps, and supports virtually all modern hardware,
> scaling to 128 threads and 16GB RAM, though it���s still 32 bit in most
> senses.
>
> As you can imagine, given the base requirements are a Pentium Pro with
> 64MB RAM, on an average laptop today it flies.
I'm not nostalgic, but the object model and how it was handling
versionning was cool.
Anybody remember Taligent?
Thierry
>
> Andrew
>
> Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
> Windows 10
>
> *From: *Richard Sargent <mailto:rsargent@5x5.on.ca>
> *Sent: *Monday, November 6, 2017 11:55 AM
> *To: *'Any question about pharo is welcome'
> <mailto:pharo-users@lists.pharo.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Pharo-users] perspective request for those earning
> alivingfromSmalltalk
>
> Andrew,
>
> I worked with OS/2 in the early 90s and really liked it; I adopted it
> for my personal use as well. I really enjoyed reading the details you
> provided earlier.
>
> I have a hypothesis that when IBM tried to sell OS/2 (Warp) via a retail
> channel that it "hurt". A company whose DNA was channel sales would find
> dealing with retail issues to be entirely different from everything they
> knew. So, I speculate that there were enough people to felt (and argued)
> that OS/2 wasn't "worth it".
>
> Any thoughts you would care to share on that supposition would be
> appreciated.
>
> *From:*Pharo-users [mailto:pharo-users-bounces@lists.pharo.org] *On
> Behalf Of *Andrew Glynn
> *Sent:* November 6, 2017 04:18
> *To:* Any question about pharo is welcome
> *Subject:* Re: [Pharo-users] perspective request for those earning a
> livingfromSmalltalk
>
> Thank you. I will see if I can get to it today or tomorrow.
>
> Andrew
>
> Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
> Windows 10
>
> *From: *Davorin Rusevljan <mailto:davorin.rusevljan@gmail.com>
> *Sent: *Monday, November 6, 2017 4:17 AM
> *To: *Any question about pharo is welcome
> <mailto:pharo-users@lists.pharo.org>
> *Subject: *Re: [Pharo-users] perspective request for those earning a
> livingfromSmalltalk
>
> On Sat, Oct 28, 2017 at 7:59 PM, Andrew Glynn <aglynn42@gmail.com
> <mailto:aglynn42@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>�������� Your history is accurate, but there���s a few things I���d like to add,
>�������� due to having been employed by IBM at exactly that period working
>�������� specifically on VisualAge, not only for Smalltalk, but for Java, C++
>�������� and Cobol as well. (my NDA���s finally having expired also helps
>�������� 😉). It���s not a correction or contradiction, but a complement to
>�������� your description, providing a relevant but different perspective.
>
> Andrew,
>
> please find a way to write an article or blog post on this subject. It
> is priceless.
>
> davorin
>