My Keynote at the Salta Conference
Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at *Smalltalks 2018*, the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference <https://hackernoon.com/my-keynote-at-the-salta-conference-435dfaccc888>. Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached. I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions. The reason for this post is the following... I need volunteers to code the competition. I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited. Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.) Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity. Regards, Richard
A good way to do this is to align it with Advent of Code 2018. AoC is actually full of interesting challenges and one can do private leaderboards. This will also put Pharo on the AoC map/subreddit where challenges are discussed. Phil On Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 15:29 Richard Kenneth Eng <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com wrote:
Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at *Smalltalks 2018*, the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference <https://hackernoon.com/my-keynote-at-the-salta-conference-435dfaccc888>.
Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached.
I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions.
The reason for this post is the following...
I need volunteers to code the competition. I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited.
Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.)
Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity.
Regards, Richard
That doesn't work for me. First of all, my programming competition has a strong marketing component. I cannot see how to market Smalltalk effectively through AoC. My Salta keynote made this very clear. AoC is unfocussed. It's not language-specific. It's basically all over the place. Second, I envision making the competition public knowledge in the (Canadian) media. Again, I don't see how that's possible with AoC. The competition includes promotional T-shirts. These shouldn't be linked with AoC. I have $25,000 and I'm not going to donate it all to AoC. That's practically no bang for the buck in terms of marketing. philippeback wrote
A good way to do this is to align it with Advent of Code 2018.
AoC is actually full of interesting challenges and one can do private leaderboards.
This will also put Pharo on the AoC map/subreddit where challenges are discussed.
Phil
On Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 15:29 Richard Kenneth Eng <
horrido.hobbies@
wrote:
> Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at *Smalltalks 2018*,
the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference <https://hackernoon.com/my-keynote-at-the-salta-conference-435dfaccc888>;.
Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached.
I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions.
The reason for this post is the following...
I need volunteers to code the competition. I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited.
Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.)
Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity.
Regards, Richard
-- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
Not even a single nibble? Doesn't anyone care about promoting Pharo? What a colossal lost opportunity! On Sun, 18 Nov 2018 at 09:29, Richard Kenneth Eng <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com> wrote:
Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at *Smalltalks 2018*, the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference <https://hackernoon.com/my-keynote-at-the-salta-conference-435dfaccc888>.
Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached.
I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions.
The reason for this post is the following...
I need volunteers to code the competition. I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited.
Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.)
Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity.
Regards, Richard
Hi Richard, So the $$$$ that we gave you is now âlost"? Perhaps people didnât understand what you expected from us other than money. What else is needed to make your project a success? We are supposed to âcode the competitionâ as well? Anything else? Is this practice of insulting people (âDoesnât anyone care about promoting Pharo?â) supposed to be motivating? Is it a demonstration of you expertise at marketing? Does it build confidence about how the Smalltalk community will be perceived by the new arrivals? Iâve appreciated your blog posts and your passion, but Iâm put off by this approach. James P.S. I realize that Iâm probably doing what Iâm criticizing in youâthrowing out negative comments from behind a keyboard to score points when I might not be so harsh in person.
On Nov 20, 2018, at 2:36 PM, Richard Kenneth Eng <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com> wrote:
Not even a single nibble? Doesn't anyone care about promoting Pharo?
What a colossal lost opportunity!
On Sun, 18 Nov 2018 at 09:29, Richard Kenneth Eng <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com <mailto:horrido.hobbies@gmail.com>> wrote: Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at Smalltalks 2018, the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference <https://hackernoon.com/my-keynote-at-the-salta-conference-435dfaccc888>.
Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached.
I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions.
The reason for this post is the following...
I need volunteers to code the competition. I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited.
Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.)
Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity.
Regards, Richard
No, the money isn't lost. I was merely suggesting that without some help, the marketing opportunity for this competition would be lost. I'm not sure you understand how much work is involved in this project. I will be doing a great deal of the heavy lifting. I have to setup the competition website server. I have to advertise or reach out to high schools across the country. I have to get local media interested in covering the competition. I have to look into producing the T-shirt swag, and shipping the T-shirts to all contest participants, and at an affordable rate to fit the budget. Those are only a few things off the top of my head. Coding the actual contest problems according to David Buck's prescription shouldn't be open-ended and shouldn't be a huge commitment. I imagine it would be a couple of months of work during spare time. jgfoster wrote
Hi Richard,
So the $$$$ that we gave you is now âlost"? Perhaps people didnât understand what you expected from us other than money. What else is needed to make your project a success? We are supposed to âcode the competitionâ as well? Anything else?
Is this practice of insulting people (âDoesnât anyone care about promoting Pharo?â) supposed to be motivating? Is it a demonstration of you expertise at marketing? Does it build confidence about how the Smalltalk community will be perceived by the new arrivals?
Iâve appreciated your blog posts and your passion, but Iâm put off by this approach.
James
P.S. I realize that Iâm probably doing what Iâm criticizing in youâthrowing out negative comments from behind a keyboard to score points when I might not be so harsh in person.
On Nov 20, 2018, at 2:36 PM, Richard Kenneth Eng <
horrido.hobbies@
> wrote:
Not even a single nibble? Doesn't anyone care about promoting Pharo?
What a colossal lost opportunity!
On Sun, 18 Nov 2018 at 09:29, Richard Kenneth Eng <
horrido.hobbies@
<mailto:
horrido.hobbies@
>> wrote:
Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at Smalltalks 2018, the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference <https://hackernoon.com/my-keynote-at-the-salta-conference-435dfaccc888>;.
Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached.
I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions.
The reason for this post is the following...
I need volunteers to code the competition. I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited.
Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.)
Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity.
Regards, Richard
-- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
OK, I'll bite. What does "code the competition" mean exactly? I last used Smalltalk "in anger" pre-pharo with squeak. I live ST and am looking for a way back "in" but TBH the changes from Squeak are vast and I have too many ideas to work on and keep hitting walls. I'm intrigued but need more direction. Whatcha need - ELI5.
On Nov 20, 2018, at 5:13 PM, horrido <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com> wrote:
No, the money isn't lost. I was merely suggesting that without some help, the marketing opportunity for this competition would be lost.
I'm not sure you understand how much work is involved in this project. I will be doing a great deal of the heavy lifting. I have to setup the competition website server. I have to advertise or reach out to high schools across the country. I have to get local media interested in covering the competition. I have to look into producing the T-shirt swag, and shipping the T-shirts to all contest participants, and at an affordable rate to fit the budget. Those are only a few things off the top of my head.
Coding the actual contest problems according to David Buck's prescription shouldn't be open-ended and shouldn't be a huge commitment. I imagine it would be a couple of months of work during spare time.
jgfoster wrote
Hi Richard,
So the $$$$ that we gave you is now âlost"? Perhaps people didnât understand what you expected from us other than money. What else is needed to make your project a success? We are supposed to âcode the competitionâ as well? Anything else?
Is this practice of insulting people (âDoesnât anyone care about promoting Pharo?â) supposed to be motivating? Is it a demonstration of you expertise at marketing? Does it build confidence about how the Smalltalk community will be perceived by the new arrivals?
Iâve appreciated your blog posts and your passion, but Iâm put off by this approach.
James
P.S. I realize that Iâm probably doing what Iâm criticizing in youâthrowing out negative comments from behind a keyboard to score points when I might not be so harsh in person.
On Nov 20, 2018, at 2:36 PM, Richard Kenneth Eng <
horrido.hobbies@
> wrote:
Not even a single nibble? Doesn't anyone care about promoting Pharo?
What a colossal lost opportunity!
On Sun, 18 Nov 2018 at 09:29, Richard Kenneth Eng <
horrido.hobbies@
<mailto:
horrido.hobbies@
>> wrote:
Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at Smalltalks 2018, the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference <https://hackernoon.com/my-keynote-at-the-salta-conference-435dfaccc888> <https://hackernoon.com/my-keynote-at-the-salta-conference-435dfaccc888>>;.
Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached.
I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions.
The reason for this post is the following...
I need volunteers to code the competition. I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited.
Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.)
Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity.
Regards, Richard
-- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html <http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html>
On Sun, 18 Nov 2018 at 09:29, Richard Kenneth Eng <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com>
wrote:
Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at *Smalltalks 2018*, the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference <https://hackernoon.com/my-keynote-at-the-salta-conference-435dfaccc888>.
This is really great. I applaud your drive to pursue your competition idea.
Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached.
I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions.
The reason for this post is the following...
I need volunteers to code the competition.
Your request is really open ended and while maybe not you intent, sounds like you want someone to deliver the whole thing for you. That could be a 10 to 20 day commitment at a $1000/day - who knows from the scope you've presented. Its like your asking for a blank cheque. And it "feels" like the full onus would be on the developer and that responsibility can be off-putting. Even people that may be inclined to help may not have the spare cycles for that commitment. They can be already be doing a *lot* of volunteer time to help Pharo which suits their priorities. Even people who believe your project is a priority may be caught up in commitments they can't drop. So there are a lot of precondition hurdles you need to hurdle to get helpers. So what you are doing is kicking off an "new" open source project. And further, in essence what you are doing is building a mini-community of helpers (even if that is one helper, and notice the distinction from pure volunteer). Now as ESR says... "When you start community-building, what you need to be able to present is a plausible promise. Your program doesn't have to work particularly well. It can be crude, buggy, incomplete, and poorly documented. What it must not fail to do is (a) run, and (b) convince potential co-developers that it can be evolved into something really neat in the foreseeable future." http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/ar01s10.h...
I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited.
This is a red herring. The majority of your "plausible promise" is the model, with unit tests demonstrating its operation. That should be able to be coded platform independently. When you progress to needing platform specific knowledge (e.g. gui, networking, web framerworks) you can start by asking specific questions in relation to your "plausible promise". You can encourage people can install your "plausible promise" on their machines to provide concrete examples to help the discussion, The trick is, once someone has installed your "plausible promise" and see it working in their infancy it becomes much more real for them, sparks ideas for small improvements and they are *much* more likely be inspired to help you. So personally, in general I'm open to helping (and I'm quite susceptible to being deeply drawn in) I'm just not inspired enough right now to drop any of my other commitments to take the lead with this.
Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.)
Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity.
On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 at 06:37, Richard Kenneth Eng <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com> wrote:
Not even a single nibble? Doesn't anyone care about promoting Pharo?
There are plenty of people here that are glad to donate significant time to helping Pharo. Frankly to imply otherwise is off putting and doesn't help you case.
What a colossal lost opportunity!
Getting no takers within a few days doesn't mean the end of the line. It means that there is something wrong with your strategy. I've given you a few tips. I hope you can adapt and persevere. It would be great to see this succeed. Please flood us with any technical questions you need to overcome. Very happy to help in this regard and it builds your presence and people's familiarity with you and the project and *then* you are much more likely people are drawn in to become involved. HTH, cheers -ben
I apologize for my premature reaction. I've observed that posts can get lost or forgotten after a week or two amidst many other posts. I was a bit nervous. My attempt at a "reminder" was clumsy. Ben Coman wrote
Getting no takers within a few days doesn't mean the end of the line. It means that there is something wrong with your strategy.
-- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
It feels to me that the money came unexpectedly and your plan was just a loosely defined idea. Appealing to money or competition to youngsters in a pop culture is a waste of money, Go to "pop tech" conferences and see what people value and praise. It's never money. And yes, there are hackatons that pay money to winners, but IMO what participants value more is the recognition. Regards, Esteban A. Maringolo El mar., 20 nov. 2018 a las 19:37, Richard Kenneth Eng (<horrido.hobbies@gmail.com>) escribió:
Not even a single nibble? Doesn't anyone care about promoting Pharo?
What a colossal lost opportunity!
On Sun, 18 Nov 2018 at 09:29, Richard Kenneth Eng <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com> wrote:
Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at Smalltalks 2018, the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference.
Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached.
I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions.
The reason for this post is the following...
I need volunteers to code the competition. I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited.
Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.)
Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity.
Regards, Richard
From the very start of my advocacy four years ago, it has always been about marketing. It has always been about reaching out to as many people as possible to raise public awareness. I cannot be sure, but I believe I've reached out to more than 100,000 people around the world who did not previously know about Smalltalk, or who thought Smalltalk was dead. Whether or not this is a positive outcome remains to be seen.
The high school competition is another marketing tool, and probably the most powerful one at my disposal. From my perspective, it is not a waste of money. Seeding thousands of young minds across the country with knowledge of Smalltalk may have profound consequences in the years to come, just as seeding thousands of college students with experience in Linux helped to lift Linux into the mainstream during the 1990s and 2000s. Advocacy begins with our younger generation â that's the only way to ensure the future.
From what I can tell, the above message resonated with the Smalltalks 2018 conference. Everybody seemed pumped. This suggests to me that my strategy is sound.
It all boils down to this: Either you agree with my marketing strategy, or you don't. If you don't, then I am not sanguine about Smalltalk's future. Its community will always remain very small. If that's acceptable, then my advocacy is no longer needed. Allow me to make one final comment: There's seems to be a perception that my effort over the past four years has been insignificant and without monetary value. I've worked on this for thousands of man-hours. Even at minimum wage, it would amount to $60,000+. I have never asked for a dollar, nor even any recognition. I've done all this for the good of the Smalltalk community. It has been pure altruism all the way. So it is disingenuous to imply that I'm offloading too much on others in the Smalltalk community. I'm not asking for much, certainly much less than I've already given these past four years. You are correct, the competition plan is still a work-in-progress. That's why I'm asking for collaboration. If I could do it all alone, I would. Esteban A. Maringolo wrote
It feels to me that the money came unexpectedly and your plan was just a loosely defined idea.
Appealing to money or competition to youngsters in a pop culture is a waste of money, Go to "pop tech" conferences and see what people value and praise. It's never money.
And yes, there are hackatons that pay money to winners, but IMO what participants value more is the recognition.
Regards,
Esteban A. Maringolo El mar., 20 nov. 2018 a las 19:37, Richard Kenneth Eng (<
horrido.hobbies@
>) escribió:
Not even a single nibble? Doesn't anyone care about promoting Pharo?
What a colossal lost opportunity!
On Sun, 18 Nov 2018 at 09:29, Richard Kenneth Eng <
horrido.hobbies@
> wrote:
Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at Smalltalks 2018, the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference.
Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached.
I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions.
The reason for this post is the following...
I need volunteers to code the competition. I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited.
Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.)
Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity.
Regards, Richard
-- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
Please keep in mind that I take the time to write this because I'd like you to succeed. On Wed, 21 Nov 2018 at 21:13, horrido <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com> wrote:
From the very start of my advocacy four years ago, it has always been about marketing. It has always been about reaching out to as many people as possible to raise public awareness. I cannot be sure, but I believe I've reached out to more than 100,000 people around the world who did not previously know about Smalltalk, or who thought Smalltalk was dead. Whether or not this is a positive outcome remains to be seen.
I'm sure its had a positive effect overall, but of course its very hard to judge. The latency is large and conversion rate low, but it all helps. Your later articles improved a lot in providing a balanced presentation. The high school competition is another marketing tool, and probably the most
powerful one at my disposal. From my perspective, it is not a waste of money. Seeding thousands of young minds across the country with knowledge of Smalltalk may have profound consequences in the years to come, just as seeding thousands of college students with experience in Linux helped to lift Linux into the mainstream during the 1990s and 2000s. Advocacy begins with our younger generation â that's the only way to ensure the future.
I do agree it has potential to make an impression on impressionable minds and a back door approach to widely introduce professors to Pharo/Smalltalk when their students complain about lesser tools. I think what you are trying to achieve is ambitious but also worthwhile if you succeed.
From what I can tell, the above message resonated with the Smalltalks 2018 conference. Everybody seemed pumped. This suggests to me that my strategy is sound.
It all boils down to this: Either you agree with my marketing strategy, or you don't. If you don't, then I am not sanguine about Smalltalk's future. Its community will always remain very small. If that's acceptable, then my advocacy is no longer needed.
Allow me to make one final comment: There's seems to be a perception that my effort over the past four years has been insignificant and without monetary value. I've worked on this for thousands of man-hours.
Of course that background is not immediately apparent in remote interactions. Though I think its more that some believed your time would be better spent on other activities than thinking you've not put in significant effort. But you don't spend a lot of time "here". You just drop in when you need something. :) And really thats okay to ask, but you need to manage your expectations about how quickly people align their lives with your goals. So its good to understand your effort, but also that just put yous on par with others here. If I consider it I'd guess I'd put in 4 hours every day for around 1500 hours a year, and many others do much more. Even at minimum wage,
it would amount to $60,000+. I have never asked for a dollar, nor even any recognition. I've done all this for the good of the Smalltalk community. It has been pure altruism all the way.
But you see... that is "your" itch that you are scratching, so even when its arduous you (presumably) don't mind. The hard work provides a sense of achievement and well being. Its an emotional response. its said that you can't argue someone out of an emotional position with a logical argument. All that left-brain right-brain stuff. And thats where you're at. So when people are contributing to Pharo to scratch an itch of their own, and you're saying "come over here and scratch my itch" its not surprising they don't drop everything and come running. So much depends on their current circumstances and interests. So it is disingenuous to imply that I'm offloading too much on others in
the Smalltalk community.
"Disingenuous" implies a purposeful falsehood in our comments. :) Whereas everyone's comments here have been I believe our honest perceptions. So its more like... there is a perception that I'm offloading too much on others in the Smalltalk community And marketing is all about perception... So maybe you've just not have marketed yourself to us very well. I'm not asking for much, certainly much less than I've already given these
past four years.
I think its not so much about comparing respective efforts, but more about what discretionary time people have available and their momentum with their interests and priorities.
You are correct, the competition plan is still a work-in-progress. That's why I'm asking for collaboration. If I could do it all alone, I would.
So you are big on marketing :). Well consider us a market of coding resources you need to understand what drives our desire to contribute. Otherwise you are not marketing, just advertising. Personally I'm open to helping out, just not in the near term. Hope you keep chipping away at it. cheers -ben
Richard, Please apologize if my reply was too harsh and without anesthesia. I'm happy a private company/person decided to fund this, I was there and applauded it then and I still celebrate it, I really hope it does good. What I'm skeptical about is about the return of this, and its effectiveness given the initial proposal and shown material, and the current loose definition/contents. I'm not doubting about your dedication and previous marketing activities, actually I believe it was quite efficient, and for the lack of any ROI or equivalent measurement, I _believe_ that this challenge won't add much. OTOH I also believe that if no harm is done, some action is better than no action, and your challenge is certainly better than just watching. In terms of funding you only needed to raise the asked money, and you succeeded. A majority vote was not necessary. So it doesn't matter whether I agree, because I only speak for myself and no one is entitled to speak on behalf of the community. Regards, Esteban A. Maringolo El mié., 21 nov. 2018 a las 10:13, horrido (<horrido.hobbies@gmail.com>) escribió:
From the very start of my advocacy four years ago, it has always been about marketing. It has always been about reaching out to as many people as possible to raise public awareness. I cannot be sure, but I believe I've reached out to more than 100,000 people around the world who did not previously know about Smalltalk, or who thought Smalltalk was dead. Whether or not this is a positive outcome remains to be seen.
The high school competition is another marketing tool, and probably the most powerful one at my disposal. From my perspective, it is not a waste of money. Seeding thousands of young minds across the country with knowledge of Smalltalk may have profound consequences in the years to come, just as seeding thousands of college students with experience in Linux helped to lift Linux into the mainstream during the 1990s and 2000s. Advocacy begins with our younger generation â that's the only way to ensure the future.
From what I can tell, the above message resonated with the Smalltalks 2018 conference. Everybody seemed pumped. This suggests to me that my strategy is sound.
It all boils down to this: Either you agree with my marketing strategy, or you don't. If you don't, then I am not sanguine about Smalltalk's future. Its community will always remain very small. If that's acceptable, then my advocacy is no longer needed.
Allow me to make one final comment: There's seems to be a perception that my effort over the past four years has been insignificant and without monetary value. I've worked on this for thousands of man-hours. Even at minimum wage, it would amount to $60,000+. I have never asked for a dollar, nor even any recognition. I've done all this for the good of the Smalltalk community. It has been pure altruism all the way.
So it is disingenuous to imply that I'm offloading too much on others in the Smalltalk community. I'm not asking for much, certainly much less than I've already given these past four years.
You are correct, the competition plan is still a work-in-progress. That's why I'm asking for collaboration. If I could do it all alone, I would.
Esteban A. Maringolo wrote
It feels to me that the money came unexpectedly and your plan was just a loosely defined idea.
Appealing to money or competition to youngsters in a pop culture is a waste of money, Go to "pop tech" conferences and see what people value and praise. It's never money.
And yes, there are hackatons that pay money to winners, but IMO what participants value more is the recognition.
Regards,
Esteban A. Maringolo El mar., 20 nov. 2018 a las 19:37, Richard Kenneth Eng (<
horrido.hobbies@
>) escribió:
Not even a single nibble? Doesn't anyone care about promoting Pharo?
What a colossal lost opportunity!
On Sun, 18 Nov 2018 at 09:29, Richard Kenneth Eng <
horrido.hobbies@
> wrote:
Some of you may already be aware of my presentation at Smalltalks 2018, the outcome of which was full funding for my Smalltalk programming competition. See My Keynote at the Salta Conference.
Three years ago, David Buck provided an outline for the competition. See attached.
I would like to use that as a starting point, though I am open to alternative suggestions.
The reason for this post is the following...
I need volunteers to code the competition. I am nowhere near qualified to do so, as my knowledge of Pharo is limited.
Without help from Pharoers (or, at least, Smalltalkers), the competition is in jeopardy. This is a great opportunity to promote Pharo. (The original competition three years ago was going to use VisualWorks, but since Cincom did not see fit to support my competition this year, I decided to go with Pharo.)
Please contact me if anyone is interested. It would be a terrible shame to waste this opportunity.
Regards, Richard
-- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html
participants (7)
-
Ben Coman -
Esteban Maringolo -
horrido -
James Foster -
phil＠highoctane.be -
Richard Kenneth Eng
-
Todd Blanchard