The audience for the Smalltalk-inspired campaign is the other 99% of programmers who would never get past: "Smalltalk = 1980 = dead = not worth checking out".
Never? This is what I've been trying to overcome for the past 5 years with hundreds of blogs.
Have already made up their mind and will not likely be convinced by a soundbite anyway
Agreed. However, hundreds of blogs over 5 years is much more than a "soundbite." I agree that Pharo's current "marketing" strategy is working, if by working you mean slow but steady growth. It may never become as "popular" as, say, Kotlin or Rust. I have a greater ambition for Smalltalk: to restore its popularity from 25 years ago. Or even from just 7 years ago when it was #37 at TIOBE <https://web.archive.org/web/20121215020045/http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/co...> . (Sadly, today it's not even in the Top 50.) I *believe* Smalltalk can have a bright future. Unfortunately, few people share this sentiment. https://youtu.be/BS_gLFOrjMw Sean P. DeNigris wrote
pharo is not smalltalk TedVanGaalen wrote
Pharo IS Smalltalk, whether you like it or not.
An ancient parable goes...
A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were aware of its shape and form. Out of curiosity, they said: "We must inspect and know it by touch, of which we are capable". So, they sought it out, and when they found it they groped about it. In the case of the first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. As for another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.
And from its Wikipedia article:
In some versions, they stop talking, start listening and collaborate to "see" the full elephant.
TL;DR
Two parts of the same elephant: 1. Pharo is Smalltalk (in the sense that St-72, 76, and 80 are) 2. Pharo is not Smalltalk (in the sense that most non-Smalltalkers think that "Smalltalk" = St-80, so they would be mislead and unnecessary turned off by #1)
The *marketing* decision's logic is something like the following: Given that both of these soundbites are equally (un)true, which one is more likely to bring people to Pharo?
|-----------------|-------------Audience--------------------| |--Sound Byte--|--Familiar w ST--|------Unfamiliar------| ____________________________________________| |--Pharo = ST---|-----N/A*-------| Ew! Last century!----| |-Pharo ~= ST--|-----N/A*-------| Hmm, interesting...--| * Have already made up their mind and will not likely be convinced by a soundbite anyway
While one can certainly understand disagreeing with the possible effectiveness of the strategy, these threads usually IMHO have the feel of a holy war from the camp touching the "Pharo = ST" part of the elephant.
In the unlikely event that anyone is still reading this, I'll paste my longer explanation from a similar 2015 thread [1]
Sean P. DeNigris wrote
The best way to understand the rationale for Pharo's marketing decision is to read one of the many long threads about it on the Pharo lists. I doubt rehashing it will provide new value.
The issue boils down to the fact that the term Smalltalk has been overloaded. The original meaning was prototype Dynabook software that was used to bootstrap its replacement every 4 years. This true definition, by design, leaves plenty of room for innovation. Unfortunately, when Smalltalk-80 was released to the world, that became what people mean when they use the word Smalltalk. Obviously, people already familiar with Smalltalk are going to look at Pharo and go, "oh look, it's Smalltalk"*. But that is not the target market. The audience for the Smalltalk-inspired campaign is the other 99% of programmers who would never get past: "Smalltalk = 1980 = dead = not worth checking out".
Anyway, I'd rather get back to hacking than waste more time in these IMHO mostly-pointless debates. In fact, I disagree that unpopularity is a problem at all. I would say that our biggest advantage is not being popular. I'll take a small community of true-believers over a mob of trend followers any day.
* Although they'd probably base that opinion on the syntax, which is the least important part of Smalltalk (the live environment being first, and libraries second). In fact, if Ruby had a live, dynamic, turtles-all-the-way-down environment, with a Morphic-like uniform, live interface, and Smalltalk-like tools, I probably wouldn't have gravitated to Smalltalk
1. Why Aren't People Using Smalltalk? http://forum.world.st/Why-Aren-t-People-Using-Smalltalk-tp4843473p4848195.ht...
----- Cheers, Sean -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
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