4 ms·

I just picked up pharo and gtoolkit recently... wishing this was the direction we were going in these days

by moocowtruck 6y ago

adamnemecek 6y ago
There's are reasons these technologies never took off.
- travisgriggs 6y ago
  Try adding something to the discussion. I'm not sure what you mean by "these technologies". I'm also not sure what you mean by "took off." The fact that we still talk about Smalltalk and Lisp despite their apparent lack of ascendency, and yet don't recall other languages from those eras must at least say that certain aspects of them "took hold" to the extent we still talk about them. Does explaining why they didn't "take off" add an interesting insight or corollary about whatever happened?
  - adamnemecek 6y ago
    Right but what software that you use is written in smalltalk?
    - Rochus 6y ago
      A great one which I used in the nineties was the Objectory software engineering tool by Ivar Jacobson and his team (later bought by Rational which unfortunately discontinued the tool in favour of Rose).
- genericone 6y ago
  A commercial smalltalk implementation is used widely in Lam Research for semiconductor machine tools.
  - dunefox 6y ago
    That's hardly "widely used".
- pjmlp 6y ago
  They were taking off before the free beer UNIX generation took over everything, and made such enviroments a thing only enterprises care to pay for.
  - mhd 6y ago
    What products in what time are we talking about here? Smalltalk environments often were priced where only enterprises could pay for them. What advanced product tried to compete on the hobbyist front, i.e. comparable to Turbo Pascal/Delphi on the pricing range? And around here, enterprise SmallTalk is about the same size as enterprise Perl. Java, which is definitely an enterprise creation, was and is the big killer here. Both on the consuming side and the producing one.
    - Rochus 6y ago
      > Smalltalk environments often were priced where only enterprises could pay for them There were also packages available for less than 100$. There were even free ST compilers.
      - mhd 6y ago
        Sure, but where those the advanced environments that were cancelled by people hopping on the Linux/C/etc bandwagon? I don't think that the argument goes with more funding Little Smalltalk would've been our software savior. There sure was a lot of abandoned programming environments, but it was usually the enterprised that fathered them that killed it. NeWs was more interesting than pretty much all of its successors. And I'm sure the Lisp Machine or Oberon grognards are willing to chime in, too. Everything being boring AF, both on the hardware and software side, certainly enabled Linux to succeed. It's a lot easier to compete if the state of the art is libc and X11.
- ojnabieoot 6y ago
  That seems like a weirdly reductionist view of “taking off.” Smalltalk had always been a primarily academic language whose footprint on programming languages in general vastly exceeds its specific user base. Ruby, Python, Java, C#, etc, all owe a great deal to Smalltalk. In that sense it’s like SML and Scheme: you could fairly say “more studied than used” but that hardly makes it irrelevant.
  - Rochus 6y ago
    > Smalltalk had always been a primarily academic language There was quite a hype in the nineties with many enterprise applications based on Smalltalk; my first contact with Smalltalk was in a commercial, not an academic setting; most of it blew away when cheap, fast (HotSpot) Java became available. > Ruby, Python, Java, C#, etc, all owe a great deal to Smalltalk. That's a bit too optimistic. E.g. Python is not a descentent of Smalltalk (see e.g. http://python-history.blogspot.com/2013/10/ http://python-history.blogspot.com/2013/10/), neither is Java (see e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccRtIdlTqlU&feature=youtu.be&t=2448 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccRtIdlTqlU&feature=youtu.be...). C# is also rather a brain child of Java and C++ than of Smalltalk.
- layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
  Please elaborate.
- goatinaboat 6y ago
  There's are reasons these technologies never took off. Well, there is some history here. In the early to mid 90s IBM was all-in on Smalltalk, they had a product called VisualAge, they were all set to push it as the next enterprise language, replacing RAD tools like Delphi etc etc. Then Java happened and immediately developed a huge mindshare and IBM pivoted the VM and tooling they had developed for Smalltalk into Java and rode that wave. But if Java had been a flash-in-the-pan, then Smalltalk would be today where Java is now in terms of adoption (and decades ahead of Java in terms of technology).
benjaminjosephw 6y ago
I came across a video showing Pharo and Smalltalk that blew me away[0] and I completely agree with you. In some fields, we are heading back in this direction with literate programming (notebooks) and new languages like Dark that attempt to rethink some of our ingrained traditions for engineering workflows. I'm working on a project in this space too. There is still hope! [0] - MountainWest RubyConf 2014 - But Really, You Should Learn Smalltalk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaKZBr0ga4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaKZBr0ga4)
gjvc 6y ago
gtoolkit is quite amazing https://gtoolkit.com/ https://gtoolkit.com/ https://github.com/feenkcom/gtoolkit https://github.com/feenkcom/gtoolkit

I just picked up pharo and gtoolkit recently... wishing this was the direction we were going in these days

adamnemecek 6y ago

There's are reasons these technologies never took off.

travisgriggs 6y ago
Try adding something to the discussion. I'm not sure what you mean by "these technologies". I'm also not sure what you mean by "took off." The fact that we still talk about Smalltalk and Lisp despite their apparent lack of ascendency, and yet don't recall other languages from those eras must at least say that certain aspects of them "took hold" to the extent we still talk about them. Does explaining why they didn't "take off" add an interesting insight or corollary about whatever happened?
- adamnemecek 6y ago
  Right but what software that you use is written in smalltalk?
  - Rochus 6y ago
    A great one which I used in the nineties was the Objectory software engineering tool by Ivar Jacobson and his team (later bought by Rational which unfortunately discontinued the tool in favour of Rose).
genericone 6y ago
A commercial smalltalk implementation is used widely in Lam Research for semiconductor machine tools.
- dunefox 6y ago
  That's hardly "widely used".
pjmlp 6y ago
They were taking off before the free beer UNIX generation took over everything, and made such enviroments a thing only enterprises care to pay for.
- mhd 6y ago
  What products in what time are we talking about here? Smalltalk environments often were priced where only enterprises could pay for them. What advanced product tried to compete on the hobbyist front, i.e. comparable to Turbo Pascal/Delphi on the pricing range? And around here, enterprise SmallTalk is about the same size as enterprise Perl. Java, which is definitely an enterprise creation, was and is the big killer here. Both on the consuming side and the producing one.
  - Rochus 6y ago
    > Smalltalk environments often were priced where only enterprises could pay for them There were also packages available for less than 100$. There were even free ST compilers.
    - mhd 6y ago
      Sure, but where those the advanced environments that were cancelled by people hopping on the Linux/C/etc bandwagon? I don't think that the argument goes with more funding Little Smalltalk would've been our software savior. There sure was a lot of abandoned programming environments, but it was usually the enterprised that fathered them that killed it. NeWs was more interesting than pretty much all of its successors. And I'm sure the Lisp Machine or Oberon grognards are willing to chime in, too. Everything being boring AF, both on the hardware and software side, certainly enabled Linux to succeed. It's a lot easier to compete if the state of the art is libc and X11.
ojnabieoot 6y ago
That seems like a weirdly reductionist view of “taking off.” Smalltalk had always been a primarily academic language whose footprint on programming languages in general vastly exceeds its specific user base. Ruby, Python, Java, C#, etc, all owe a great deal to Smalltalk. In that sense it’s like SML and Scheme: you could fairly say “more studied than used” but that hardly makes it irrelevant.
- Rochus 6y ago
  > Smalltalk had always been a primarily academic language There was quite a hype in the nineties with many enterprise applications based on Smalltalk; my first contact with Smalltalk was in a commercial, not an academic setting; most of it blew away when cheap, fast (HotSpot) Java became available. > Ruby, Python, Java, C#, etc, all owe a great deal to Smalltalk. That's a bit too optimistic. E.g. Python is not a descentent of Smalltalk (see e.g. http://python-history.blogspot.com/2013/10/ http://python-history.blogspot.com/2013/10/), neither is Java (see e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccRtIdlTqlU&feature=youtu.be&t=2448 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccRtIdlTqlU&feature=youtu.be...). C# is also rather a brain child of Java and C++ than of Smalltalk.
layoutIfNeeded 6y ago
Please elaborate.
goatinaboat 6y ago
There's are reasons these technologies never took off. Well, there is some history here. In the early to mid 90s IBM was all-in on Smalltalk, they had a product called VisualAge, they were all set to push it as the next enterprise language, replacing RAD tools like Delphi etc etc. Then Java happened and immediately developed a huge mindshare and IBM pivoted the VM and tooling they had developed for Smalltalk into Java and rode that wave. But if Java had been a flash-in-the-pan, then Smalltalk would be today where Java is now in terms of adoption (and decades ahead of Java in terms of technology).

benjaminjosephw 6y ago

I came across a video showing Pharo and Smalltalk that blew me away[0] and I completely agree with you. In some fields, we are heading back in this direction with literate programming (notebooks) and new languages like Dark that attempt to rethink some of our ingrained traditions for engineering workflows. I'm working on a project in this space too. There is still hope! [0] - MountainWest RubyConf 2014 - But Really, You Should Learn Smalltalk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaKZBr0ga4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaKZBr0ga4)

gjvc 6y ago

gtoolkit is quite amazing https://gtoolkit.com/ https://gtoolkit.com/ https://github.com/feenkcom/gtoolkit https://github.com/feenkcom/gtoolkit