Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcomsv!uu3news.netcom.com!netcomsv!uucp3.netcom.com!slcgate!servio!servio!marcs
From: marcs@slc.com (Marc San Soucie)
Subject: Re: Smalltalk on the Server
Message-ID: <marcs.795990822@servio>
Sender: news@slc.com (USENET News)
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Organization: Servio Corporation, Beaverton OR, USA
References: <3kav9m$kqh@news1.delphi.com>
Date: 23 Mar 95 20:33:42 GMT
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jsutherland@BIX.com (Jeff Sutherland) writes:

> I received a friendly request to repost this comment and change the subject
> of the thread as it was no longer relevant to the topic below.

> Thomas Murphy (tmurphy@manifold.win.net) says:

> >This is true, as noted by Mitchell Kramer in talking about 
> >2nd generation c/s tools -- smalltalk vendors offer the 
> >ability to partition your app into 3 tiers they don't really 
> >meet the full definition since none have a strong 
> >server-side or distributed architecture.  The closest answer 
> >at this point would be HP on top of PPS.

> A good question for this newsgroup is, "are corporations ready to put 
> Smalltalk on the server for production business systems."

Since this is the product focus of GemStone, I'd have to say that
corporations are not just ready, they're demanding it. The 3-tier model
provides a number of benefits for companies wanting to establish
business-wide object models that can be used by a number of related or
disparate applications. To do this in an object-oriented way, large numbers
are turning to Smalltalk (for reasons we can all appreciate), and so are
asking for server-based Smalltalk as a critical component of the solution.


> Many of our customers do a lot of stored procedure processor on a database 
> server.  Some of them mandate that business rules be stored in this way.

Understandably. But the ease of development increases dramatically when the
client-side application schema and the server-side business model are the
same, and when the languages for application code and business rules are
the same.


> Some of our larger clients have applications processors (typically UNIX) 
> between the clients (PCs) and mainframes, but they are doing their 
> application processes in C.  It's not very productive but it runs fast.

The unfortunate part of this is that those application processes have to do
more than just application work. They also have to handle communications
with the clients, transaction semantics, connections to legacy systems and
other application server processes, and so on. Far simpler to have a
dedicated application server which already encompasses all of those
functions, and runs Smalltalk to boot.


> I think this issue is worthy of some further discussion.

I agree.

    Marc San Soucie
    Servio Corporation
    Beaverton, Oregon
    marcs@slc.com
