5 ms·

> instead of spending thousands of dollars a seat on Envy/developer. It wasn't the cost of Smalltalk that was the problem, as there were low-cost implementatio

> instead of spending thousands of dollars a seat on Envy/developer. It wasn't the cost of Smalltalk that was the problem, as there were low-cost implementations of Smalltalk, such as Smalltalk/V available on PC from the mid 80s onwards.

smackeyacky 5y ago
No but the only credible source control tool for VisualWorks was envy/developer. Otherwise you were filing in and out classes and trying to share your changes. It was a disaster.
- igouy 5y ago
  From the blog post — 'Digitalk’s Team/V unobtrusively introduced a non-reflective syntax and versioned source code using RCS. Team/V could forward and backwards migrate versions of Smalltalk “modules” within an running virtual image.'
redis_mlc 5y ago
> It wasn't the cost of Smalltalk that was the problem, as there were low-cost implementations of Smalltalk Low-cost for large companies, but prohibitive for small companies/home use? > such as Smalltalk/V available on PC from the mid 80s onwards. Anybody use it? Any good?
aardvark179 5y ago
Licensing costs were most definitely an issue. The Smallworld GIS system was written using a home grown language and VM because that was more economical than issuing every user with a suitable Smalltalk licence (because in the early days every user was expected to potentially be writing code to analyse their data).
- igouy 5y ago
  Would it have made any sense for a software tool vendor to let someone buy one license and then redistribute the software tool to their customers? Magik https://sworldwatch.blogspot.com/2011/08/smallworld-technical-paper-no-5.html https://sworldwatch.blogspot.com/2011/08/smallworld-technica...
jasode 5y ago
>It wasn't the cost of Smalltalk that was the problem, as there were low-cost implementations of Smalltalk, such as Smalltalk/V available on PC from the mid 80s onwards. Smalltalk/V on DOS (1980s) had extra runtime royalties payments which was too expensive for deployment. So other 4GL languages like dBASE/Clipper/Foxpro or even C Language without those costs were more attractive. The later Smalltalk/V for Windows did eventually remove the royalties but the base dev package didn't include ODBC database connectivity for free. (I think you had to pay extra for the Digitalk PARTS Workbench with db drivers?) In contrast, Microsoft Visual Basic had free ODBC drivers to connect to Oracle, Sybase, etc. Of the dozens of companies I interacted with for LOB (line-of-business) applications, Smalltalk was never even a consideration. In the early 1990s, there was modest hype and popularity with Powersoft PowerBuilder which was more of a competitor to MS Visual Basic for internal corporate apps than Smalltalk or Java.
- cabalamat 5y ago
  > Smalltalk/V on DOS (1980s) had extra runtime royalties payments That's something i don't recall (it was a long time ago).
  - jecel 5y ago
    I am pretty sure it wasn't the case. I phoned Digitalk's Jim Anderson to try to negotiate a license to let me use their image with my 68000 based virtual machine (this was before Digitalk had any Mac versions) so I paid very close attention to the details of their licensing agreement. Smalltalk/V was distributed as a nearly empty v.exe file plus a list of .dll files. As you developed your code it would get added to the v.exe so your stuff would always be clearly separated from Digitalk's. The .dlls were divided into two groups: basic system and development. The license allowed you to freely redistribute all files except for the development .dlls. If a client of yours wanted those for some reason they would have to buy their own Smalltalk V/DOS from Digitalk. Except for the source to bytecode compiler, which was secret, the rest of the development system's sources were available. That meant that I didn't actually need Digitalk's permission to do what I wanted since I mostly wanted their sources (I had no idea how much Xerox would charge for the "real" Smalltalk but supposed it would be a lot more than what Digitalk might agree to). But I didn't want to take advantage of their not so well thought out license and upset them. Jim said he didn't think I would be able to port their stuff to the 68000 and didn't give permission for me to try, so I just went in a different direction.

smackeyacky 5y ago

No but the only credible source control tool for VisualWorks was envy/developer. Otherwise you were filing in and out classes and trying to share your changes. It was a disaster.

igouy 5y ago
From the blog post — 'Digitalk’s Team/V unobtrusively introduced a non-reflective syntax and versioned source code using RCS. Team/V could forward and backwards migrate versions of Smalltalk “modules” within an running virtual image.'

redis_mlc 5y ago

> It wasn't the cost of Smalltalk that was the problem, as there were low-cost implementations of Smalltalk Low-cost for large companies, but prohibitive for small companies/home use? > such as Smalltalk/V available on PC from the mid 80s onwards. Anybody use it? Any good?

aardvark179 5y ago

Licensing costs were most definitely an issue. The Smallworld GIS system was written using a home grown language and VM because that was more economical than issuing every user with a suitable Smalltalk licence (because in the early days every user was expected to potentially be writing code to analyse their data).

igouy 5y ago
Would it have made any sense for a software tool vendor to let someone buy one license and then redistribute the software tool to their customers? Magik https://sworldwatch.blogspot.com/2011/08/smallworld-technical-paper-no-5.html https://sworldwatch.blogspot.com/2011/08/smallworld-technica...

jasode 5y ago

>It wasn't the cost of Smalltalk that was the problem, as there were low-cost implementations of Smalltalk, such as Smalltalk/V available on PC from the mid 80s onwards. Smalltalk/V on DOS (1980s) had extra runtime royalties payments which was too expensive for deployment. So other 4GL languages like dBASE/Clipper/Foxpro or even C Language without those costs were more attractive. The later Smalltalk/V for Windows did eventually remove the royalties but the base dev package didn't include ODBC database connectivity for free. (I think you had to pay extra for the Digitalk PARTS Workbench with db drivers?) In contrast, Microsoft Visual Basic had free ODBC drivers to connect to Oracle, Sybase, etc. Of the dozens of companies I interacted with for LOB (line-of-business) applications, Smalltalk was never even a consideration. In the early 1990s, there was modest hype and popularity with Powersoft PowerBuilder which was more of a competitor to MS Visual Basic for internal corporate apps than Smalltalk or Java.

cabalamat 5y ago
> Smalltalk/V on DOS (1980s) had extra runtime royalties payments That's something i don't recall (it was a long time ago).
- jecel 5y ago
  I am pretty sure it wasn't the case. I phoned Digitalk's Jim Anderson to try to negotiate a license to let me use their image with my 68000 based virtual machine (this was before Digitalk had any Mac versions) so I paid very close attention to the details of their licensing agreement. Smalltalk/V was distributed as a nearly empty v.exe file plus a list of .dll files. As you developed your code it would get added to the v.exe so your stuff would always be clearly separated from Digitalk's. The .dlls were divided into two groups: basic system and development. The license allowed you to freely redistribute all files except for the development .dlls. If a client of yours wanted those for some reason they would have to buy their own Smalltalk V/DOS from Digitalk. Except for the source to bytecode compiler, which was secret, the rest of the development system's sources were available. That meant that I didn't actually need Digitalk's permission to do what I wanted since I mostly wanted their sources (I had no idea how much Xerox would charge for the "real" Smalltalk but supposed it would be a lot more than what Digitalk might agree to). But I didn't want to take advantage of their not so well thought out license and upset them. Jim said he didn't think I would be able to port their stuff to the 68000 and didn't give permission for me to try, so I just went in a different direction.