Message-ID: <331C7623.2E0A@inxpress.net>
Date: Tue, 04 Mar 1997 13:21:07 -0600
From: drs <drs@inxpress.net>
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Organization: University of Wisconsin
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To: peteday@ibm.net
Subject: pouring gasoline [was Re: Fiddling while Smalltalk burns]
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peteday@ibm.net wrote:

[snipped earlier stuff]
> 
> >>The bottom line:  Let's stop whining, and take aim at the real issues.
> >Are you up for it?
> >
> Dan,
> 
> As usual you make some good points.  But is Smalltalk really burning.  There are
> a couple of issues here.  (1) Why Smalltalk never became ubiquitous.  (2) If Java
> will kill off what Smalltalk there is.
> 
> The answer to question (2) is probably not - in some areas Java and Smalltalk will
> fight over the same space and in some Java will win.  But at least here in the UK
> there are no signs currently that Java is removing interest in Smalltalk; indeed
> with some adroit marketing and positioning there is even potential for Java to
> benefit Smalltalk.

James Gosling said he thought other front-ends to java would be easy to 
implement. A smalltalk front-end for writing java classes sounds both
do-able 
and highly useful.

People seem to be blinded by the C++ appearence of the code, but java is 
about 80% smalltalk system (a nicely distributed smalltalk, actually),
with
a front-end designed on purpose to be familiar to C++ users. That's it. 

Instead of whining about java, smalltalkers ought to be praising
it--because 
what java represents is really the triumph of the byte-code, garbage
collection, the virtual machine, and objects in general. and, if you
have some special fondness 
for the "classic" smalltalk syntax, then let us build a front-end which
offers it. 
Let's move on.

> But the answer to (1) has to lie at the door, largely, of ParcPlace and Digitalk
> both separately and combined and the other Smalltalk vendors too - but PP and Digitalk
> were there first and carry the heavy end of the can because there was something
> wrong with their strategy that failed to make Smalltalk ubiquitous.

I think the opposite is more nearly correct. PPD is a failed company
with no 
apparent desire for preserving or supporting past projects and no
obvious 
plans for emboldening the future. Forget them. The future lies
elsewhere.

DRS
