Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk,comp.sys.next.advocacy
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!fs7.ece.cmu.edu!hudson.lm.com!news.pop.psu.edu!news.cac.psu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uunet!world!edwards
From: edwards@world.std.com (Jonathan Edwards)
Subject: NeXT vs. Smalltalk
Message-ID: <D0LrMK.303@world.std.com>
Organization: IntraNet, Inc.
Date: Sat, 10 Dec 1994 16:11:08 GMT
Lines: 54
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.smalltalk:18675 comp.sys.next.advocacy:24867

It seems that Next and Smalltalk are the most advanced environment/frameworks
for application programming today. But I have seen little comparative analysis
of them. Perhaps this is healthy comraderie in the face of a common enemy:
Visual Basic + OLE. But one still needs to choose between them. Here are some
of the differences as I perceive them, based on admittedly superficial
observation:

Installed base: Smalltalk has perhaps 200K seats, but some of that may be
ST/V-Win play-ware. Next has perhaps 100K seats, but with a higher percentage
of heavy developers. Smalltalk appears to be experienceing a growth spurt.

Market Position: Smalltalk has multiple vendors which are small companies
(<$50M), except for IBM. IBM's true love may be Taligent, though.
Next is a single small company, but with a perhaps significant alliance with 
SUN.

Third-party support (tools and components): About equal?

Market Perception: Both are seen as fringe products, but also benefit from
being seen as "pure" Object-Oriented. Adopters are generally Object
true-believers, rather than pragmatists, who are tending towards C++.
Next has a particular perception problem because it has made such disastrous
marketing decision, and appeared to act very arrogantly and unresponsively.
It is already written off as a loser by many.

Portability. Smalltalk runs on everything, but is not standardized.
Next is well-defined, but currently only runs as
a stand-alone OS on M68K, Intel, and PA-RISC boxes. Will be hosted on top of
vendor OS's on Sun, HP, and DEC. Rumours about running on WIN32. 
Rumours about running on PowerPC. Will it ever run on IBM RS/6000's?

GUI look & feel. [Native Windows L&F seems important to us]. Only Digitalk ST
sports an authentic native Windows L&F. The other ST's come more or less close,
and may respond to market pressure by getting closer (except IBM).
Next has its own very different L&F, and is proud of it, so it is unlikely
to ever condone Windows L&F. [Is this Next's next big marketing mistake?]

Language. Next has a greater "dynamic range": it can span high-level 
application coding down to low-level things like communications, real-time, 
multi-threading, databases, etc. Obj-C is inherently easier to interface to
the C-dominated outside world. Smalltalk has garbage collection.

Development environment. ? Is Next's GNU-based toolset as nice and integrated
as the Smalltalk environment? Is the Unix command-line still heavily involved?

Power of framework. ???
Productivity of framework. ???
Learning Curve. ???


-- 
Jonathan Edwards				edwards@intranet.com
IntraNet, Inc					617-527-7020
One Gateway Center				FAX: 617-527-6779
