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From: semrc@rc.rit.edu (Sigrid E. Mortensen)
Subject: COBOL Programmers Transitioning to Smalltalk?
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Date: Tue, 21 Mar 1995 21:54:07 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.lang.cobol:2135 comp.lang.smalltalk:21990

  According to the Feburary '95 issue of _Software Magazine_ ("Will IBM Make
Smalltalk?" pp. 21 & 22) and from what I gleaned by attending the last Digitalk 
DevCon, it is the opinion of many of the Smalltalk vendors that the next big 
market for Smalltalk is among COBOL programmers.

  What I'd like to know is, how many of the MIS shops that are using COBOL
have serious plans to transition to Smalltalk?  (Are there any published studies
out there that back up the claims by the Smalltalk vendors that this should 
indeed be their next market?)

  How many of you COBOL programmers are facing the prospect of learning 
Smalltalk?

  How many of you Smalltalk programmers came from COBOL?

  If you are about to transition to Smalltalk, what do you see as your biggest
obstacle?

  If you have just transitioned, what was the hardest part of the transition?

  When faced with the prospect of transitioning, is your company hesitating 
because of the infamous Smalltalk learning curve?  Would this concern go away
if you had better training and tools?

  Are there any other reasons that your company has decided *not* to make the
transition?

  Is there any product or service that would help your company decide *to* make
the transition?

  *******

  Thanks for your input.  My group at Rochester Institute of Technology's
Research Corp. is considering becoming involved in Smalltalk training and 
beginner-Smalltalk training/development tools.  Each of our four Smalltalk 
programmers has at least 5 years of Smalltalk experience.  Over those 5 years, 
we have built our own tools to help make programming in Smalltalk easier, and we 
have gained considerable experience.  We would like to share both with other 
programmers just starting out in Smalltalk.  Your answers to these questions 
will help us evaluate our tools and steer us toward building better tools to 
really help this market (if it really exists) make the COBOL-Smalltalk 
transition.

-- 
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|||  Sigrid E.   ||| RIT Research Corporation  |||     phone:     |||
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