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Why Aren't People Using Smalltalk?
- vezzy-fnord 11y agoAs a result of growing interest in functional programming, there is a large blanket hatred of OO emerging, particularly from newbies who see the two paradigms as intrinsically opposed, and who have acquired bad tastes from the standard polymorphism/encapsulation/inheritance languages that most people know as OO. Smalltalk gets swept under the rug as well in the process.
- horrido 11y agoExactly! As mentioned in the article, Alan Kay's vision of OOP was corrupted into the rubbish we see today in C++, Java, Scala, etc. Today's conventional OOP is nothing more than an extension to Abstract Data Types...useful, but not nearly as powerful as Smalltalk's "true" OOP (https://medium.com/@richardeng/getting-the-message-667d77ff78d https://medium.com/@richardeng/getting-the-message-667d77ff7...).
- T-A 11y agoI looked (again) at Smalltalk maybe 5 years ago, and concluded that it didn't offer enough over more recent and more familiar OO languages to warrant a switch. So I guess my answer is that it introduced nice ideas, then everybody else stole them, so you no longer need Smalltalk to use them.
- zaitcev 11y agoThe only appropriate answer to the IDE part is this: JEREMY CLARKSON: You mention that you rent a garage. JAMES MAY: Yes. JEREMY CLARKSON: How far away from your house? JAMES MAY: I don't know. Seven miles? JEREMY CLARKSON: You rent a garage seven miles from your house! How do you get there? JAMES MAY: On... on my folding bicycle, obviously. JEREMY CLARKSON: You are mad! Clinically insane!
- kjs3 11y agoI've always suspected that at the point Smalltalk needed to shine to get a generation of coders on board, the ridiculous cost of an industrial strength Smalltalk dev environment ran most of them off. Smalltalk never recovered.
- horrido 11y agoExactly right! Smalltalk never recovered because of its PR problem. Smalltalk has been free (or inexpensive) for over 15 years now.