Re: [Pharo-dev] a Pharo talk from a ruby conference

[Ben Coman]

Sean P. DeNigris wrote: Esteban A. Maringolo wrote This is my point, who uses WebDAV as its file support? It is a "workaround" to enable file based development. A VERY CLEVER one, but still. A tool is always a layer of abstraction over the real model. I wouldn't say it's any more of a workaround than a System Browser is a workaround to enable source code based development instead of the real underlying bytecode model ;) But what I'm seeing in this conversation is a useful marketing path. What if we collected the most common objections to Smalltalk and worked on making the solutions easy and well-documented. We have the building blocks, but I mean packaging and explaining them from an outsiders point of view. For example, even though we Smalltalkers may not want to edit St code in emacs/vim (although I do miss the bindings - Igor, help we need that new text editor ha ha!), it might be a good investment to make sure it can be done easily in Pharo and prominently display that feature on the website. FAQ Q: Can I develop in my favorite text editor A: Yes! Choose "enable external editor" from the world menu... And maybe not even mention that developing outside the live, dynamic environment is not a good idea. Maybe that's the teddy bear they need to hold onto in a scary new world until they get comfortable and realize the power and advantage of giving that up for themselves. Why do some people prefer rock music and others classical music?   Its about the patterns they know.  Our brains naturally try to cram each experience into a pattern it already knows.  I remember when I used to dislike Jazz music - I couldn't "understand it".  Then I started to listen to Jamiroquai a lot - a funky Jazz/Techno hybrid.   Then later I found that I had learned to like Jazz - I could now "understand it" and know its patterns - but I needed a stepping stone to get there.  It might be that some starts using Pharo with their favourite text editor as a comfort factor, as a stepping stone, and then migrates over time to the standard editors.  So that is a path to draw in new users - but of course that takes effort to set up. cheers -ben Same goes with Unix interop. REPL is easy, but is it documented and marketed? What would it take to easily pipe output of other programs to Pharo? Maybe be able to sourceCodeString exportAsUnixCommand: '/usr/bin/my_cool_command' We're usually do screencasts of "blue plane ideas that people don't even know they need". A series of "pink plane things that people are attached to, even if they would probably give them up if they grokked Smalltalk", but presented as serious how-tos, could really help us grow to critical mass. ----- Cheers, Sean -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/a-Pharo-talk-from-a-ruby-conference-tp4756805p4757055.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Developers mailing list archive at Nabble.com.