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: Server Smalltalk
Message-ID: <marcs.795991357@servio>
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Organization: Servio Corporation, Beaverton OR, USA
References: <245@manifold.win.net><3jqnas$q5p@news1.delphi.com> <248@manifold.win.net>
Date: 23 Mar 95 20:42:37 GMT
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tmurphy@manifold.win.net (Thomas Murphy) writes:

> Jeff Sutherland (jsutherland@BIX.com) writes:

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

> Jeff, I would tend to agree with your points.  Most of our
> customers aren't ready to do distributed objects...heck
> they are just starting objects and therefor just need to
> know where things are going in the future.  And with those
> guys at IBM saying we'll have ST on every piece of
> hardware in the world...

Actually, a large number of corporations are already deploying systems with
merged client and server-side Smalltalk. These are our customers. It
doesn't take long for smart people to realize that there are limits to
network throughput and client system memory that make a multi-client
Smalltalk server a valuable component of the whole system.


> Currently, like the Enfin customers, Visual Smalltalk
> customers also make use of a variety of strategies.  Often
> they are taking a phased approach so they reuse legacy
> logic on mainframes (not servers) that they access via the
> CICS tp monitor.  Other make use of DCE or do more basic
> lu 6.2 communications.

And some of your customers are using GemStone to serve this function.


> Other customers are more advanced though and often these
> are not only worried about objects but are also interested
> in persistence etc.  These are the customers that we work
> with Servio to build distributed object systems that have
> persistent object storage.

I don't think 'persistence' is the real issue, though. I think it is more a
case of wanting the objects to serve more than one client at a time, more
than one application at a time, and to connect a number of system
components together in a way that does not require each client to do the
work individually.


> It is not just the customers but also the Smalltalks that
> aren't quite ready in general for general purpose
> distribution.  I think that Smalltalk offers a great
> opportunity for the future and this is what our customers
> are betting on--that we will be there when they are.

Actually, we think your product is more ready than you seem to! Some of 
your customers are very happily implementing and executing client/server - 
actually 3-tier - object solutions with Visual Smalltalk and GemStone.

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