It does make one wonder why things that seem to work great also frequently get dismissed. It could just be appearances, that there are actually problems somewhere that people sense intuitively and turn off to, without trying to explain their hesitations.
There are many fascinating issues here, but I think the two main reasons good stuff gets dumped are that things that work a) usually break rules that make people feel uncomfortable about change, or b) would put investors at a temporary disadvantage competitively, and so get filtered out despite long term advantages. One of the more curious examples of the latter is conservation, like investing in technologies that would be competitive in 20 years. It doesn't pay in terms of competitive advantage now, so it would do a business harm to try, and of course we're all goners if we don't! Phil Henshaw ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 680 Ft. Washington Ave NY NY 10040 tel: 212-795-4844 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] explorations: www.synapse9.com > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Bill Eldridge > Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 3:19 PM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Seaside (Smalltalk web development framework) > > > Owen Densmore wrote: > > Hmm..this leads me to ask the question: > > Who of us currently uses Smalltalk/Squeak? > > If so, which implementation? > > > > I'd be interested in your experiences. We often talk about rapid > > prototyping, but we seldom actually do it. But my friends > at PARC in > > the early days, and a couple of hold-outs at SunLabs could perform > > magic very, very quickly. > > > > I like this quote from the Squeak web site: > > > > You may be familiar with other open source languages like Ruby or > > Python, but Squeak takes these concepts much, much further > offering a > > true uniform fully reflective environment - real live objects. > > > > "The real romance is out ahead and yet to come. The computer > > revolution hasn't started yet. Don't be misled by the enormous > > flow of money into bad defacto standards for > unsophisticated buyers > > using poor adaptations of incomplete ideas." > > - Alan Kay > > > > Alright, I give up - why do fun languages like Python or more fun > languages like Squeak > get passed over in the market compared to rather annoying > languages like > Java? > How come they haven't been as competitive as say Linux as a server OS > platform? > Why is C++ vs. Java still our fate in 2006? Is there no God? Have we > been bad? > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org > > ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
