But that is the point. This kind of marketing is false. It denies who we
are.
As soon as they look at Pharo. Learn to use and then learn that Pharo is
a Smalltalk and that we are liars.
Did keeping silent about Pharo help in the Reddit thread. No.
Did the current marketing explain well what Pharo is. No.
Read the thread. People were confused.
And regardless of the marketing attempt, the fact of Pharo being a
Smalltalk did not remain suppressed. So therefore, those who were closed
minded against Smalltalk have then been alerted, and they can close
their minds. Attempting to not make it plain was an abject failure.
People who understand the value of Smalltalk and of a modern open source
implementation will come.
I guess none of the commercial Smalltalks are alive? Nobody knows of
them. They are going broke?
Gemstone, VisualWorks, ...
What is this new thing that people are using?
Clojure based on Lisp. Not new.
Python 23 years old.
Lua 21
Ruby 19
Clojure based on Lisp but adding modern functional features disproves
any thought that an old language with lots of baggage can't attract new
users.
From the Clojure home page. """Clojure is a dialect of Lisp"""
They embrace their heritage and are better for it. They also detail
their value proposition and being a Lisp is part of it.
I am all agreeable to attracting people to our community. But falseness
isn't the way.
Not everybody is closed minded and ignorant. Those that are we can wait
until they are not.
But Pharo has to offer people the proper value proposition. When it
does, I believe it will attract sincere people. When the value of Pharo
meets the needs of the people, it will attact the appropriate people.
But until then, we can market it however we want and they will not care.
Right now Pharo is working hard to reach that point that it can offer
them something they will value. For some it already does. For others not
yet. That not yet, it a bigger obstacle than Pharo being marketed as a
Smalltalk and telling the truth.
We need to embrace being a Smalltalk and sell our value proposition in
terms that mean something to somebody who doesn't already get Smalltalk.
We failed at that. Too vague, too ambiguous. It confused some of the
Reddit people. People to whom we are supposedly intending to attract and
market to.
Jimmie
On 04/30/2014 01:22 PM, Esteban Lorenzano wrote:
Again… you are missing the point.
nobody here doubts Pharo is a Smalltalk.
nobody outside our small world believes Smalltalk is alive.
And yes… you can argue all what you want. But you are scratching where
it does not itch.
We choose not to *market* Pharo as a Smalltalk, because each time
someone outside our small world hear about Smalltalk believes that is
a long time dead language. No matter how much effort you put into
explain that is not true, people will not believe it. And people is
always more willing to try something new than something old (except in
the case of wines and fine alcohols, of course).
So… we prefer to track people to our community and let them notice wat
WE ALL KNOW: Smalltalk is not dead, and Pharo is a proof of that.
Esteban
On 30 Apr 2014, at 20:07, Jimmie Houchin <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
In the Smalltalk heritage. Pharo comes from Smalltalk 80.
But we don't want to be stuck in 1980. We want Smalltalk 2014.
Smalltalk 80 was modern for 1980. They didn't want to be stuck in
1976. ...
And Smalltalk isn't unique to this. Is C11 not a C because it is not
K&R, or C89, C90 or C99?
Is Python 3.x not Python because it is not fully compatible with
Python 2.x which is dominant?
Pharo wants to be a modern Smalltalk able to empower people in this
era to do things that we do in 2014. We need appropriate modularity
in the image. We need the image to be clean. We need to learn the
lessons we as Smalltalker's have learned in the last 24 years and
apply them to Pharo Smalltalk. And I believe that is much of what
Pharo is attempting to do.
Noel in his talk said that Smalltalk doesn't play well with others.
And with Pharo it still isn't as easy as in other languages like
Python, Ruby, Lua, etc. But with NativeBoost we have a tool which
enables us to do much. And NativeBoost isn't finished. I believe when
NativeBoost is fully mature and the vm/image has sufficiently changed
to enable us. We will have one of the best plays with others well
stories.
I know in the app I am writing, NativeBoost's current condition
struggled with my library. It often crashed. This library has to deal
with a C Thread. Which is why I am spending my current time studying C.
Whether or not the Smalltalk Inspired crowd likes it, the moment some
else declares that Pharo is a Smalltalk the Smalltalk Inspired
marketing is tanked. The cat is out of the bag.
The Reddit thread demonstrates this. People went to the new website.
They read the current marketing and were confused. What is this Pharo
thing. And in the thread it comes out that Pharo is a Smalltalk. Lets
make that clear up front. Then lets define what it means to be Pharo
Smalltalk.
Here is an unfortunate quote from that thread.
"""
emaringolo 1 point an hour ago
Pharo is aimed to do serious/business development, and it's been
reshaping itself since its conception (several years ago when it
forked from Squeak).
It doesn't want to have any backward or "historic" compatibility with
other Smalltalks.
You can see its changelogs and the roadmap for future versions to see
how it is different, and how it will be different.
"""
This makes it sound like Pharo wants remove compatibility simply for
the sake of not being a Smalltalk. As opposed to what I believe
Esteban meant. And yes I understand that English is not his native
language, and there are many for whom it is, who still use it poorly.
What I believe he meant, is that Pharo will not be constrained by
backward compatibility. If a change or feature that is of value to
Pharo Smalltalk. That feature will be done even if it means breaking
backward compatibility with other Smalltalk 80 based Smalltalks. We
are moving forward. But this does not invalidate Pharo being a
Smalltalk. As has been stated before, breaking changes happened in
Smalltalk 76 and 80.
Smalltalk has a wonderful heritage. It is not without its issues.
However the good of Smalltalk is enormous. Take a look at this chart
http://exploringdata.github.io/vis/programming-languages-influence-network/
Smalltalk is a big influence in the history of programming. This is
something worth being a part of. Be proud of it.
Pharo needs to define what one vision of a modern Smalltalk is. Let
us educate people of what our vision for Pharo Smalltalk is. And
guess what folks its 2014. Before long it wont be. And before long
the vision of Pharo 2014 will no longer be any more modern than
Smalltalk 80. But neither Smalltalk 80 nor Pharo 3.0 constrain what
it means to be Smalltalk. Smalltalk inspires vision and inspires
people to do things which change the present and the future. Lets
build on that heritage and take it forward. What does a modern
Smalltalk snapshot 2014 mean. Lets educate and communicate. Others
(non-Smalltalkers) don't get to define what Smalltalk is. We do.
Let us learn from them what they think Smalltalk is. Where they are
wrong, educate them. Where they are right and we have an issue. Let's
learn a lesson and improve our Smalltalk.
Computer science/art is young. This is a journey. Lets make it a good
one.
Jimmie
On 04/30/2014 11:12 AM, [email protected] wrote:
Pharo := Smalltalk ++
On Wed, Apr 30, 2014 at 5:43 PM, Jimmie Houchin <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
On 04/28/2014 11:12 AM, Marcus Denker wrote:
… more a Smalltalk one using Pharo:
MountainWest RubyConf 2014
Noel Rappin: "But Really, You Should Learn Smalltalk”
Smalltalk has mystique. We talk about it more than we use
it. It seems like it should be so similar to Ruby. It has
similar Object-Oriented structures, it even has blocks. But
everything is so slightly different, from the programming
environment, to the 1-based arrays, to the simple syntax.
Using Smalltalk will make you look at familiar constructs
with new eyes. We’ll show you how to get started on
Smalltalk, and walk through some sample code. Live coding
may be involved. You’ll never look at objects the same way
again.
http://www.confreaks.com/videos/3284-mwrc-but-really-you-should-learn-smalltalk
In this thread and many others there is this debate as to
whether Pharo is a Smalltalk or is Smalltalk Inspired.
I find the Smalltalk Inspired arguments to be unpersuasive. To
be Smalltalk Inspired is to say that you are not a Smalltalk. It
is to say that Pharo is not Smalltalk but inspired by it.
I find that reasoning patently false.
First of all everything in Pharo begins from a Smalltalk image.
It comes from Squeak Smalltalk which comes from Apple Smalltalk.
etc.
Pharo has an isA relationship with Smalltalk, not an
isInspiredBy relationship. It may change and add features, but
as has been stated before, Smalltalk isn't a static idea or
artifact. It has always been a dynamic live environment in which
to change itself into something it believed to be better. By
removing features and by growing them.
Smalltalk (an instance of SmalltalkImage), SmalltalkImage,
SmalltalkImageTest, SmalltalkEditingState are all part of the
Pharo Smalltalk image.
The Pharo image is a Smalltalk image. It says so inside the
image itself.
Where are we hosting are source code? Would that be SmalltalkHub?
Lets see something.
http://www.smalltalkhub.com/#!/~Pharo
<http://www.smalltalkhub.com/#%21/%7EPharo>
Okay, Pharo might be doing things that would break compatibility
with other Smalltalks. And that causes some people pain and
grief. However that does not make Pharo not a Smalltalk. Was
Smalltalk 76 constrained by backward compatibility with
Smalltalk 72? Or Smalltalk 80 with either Smalltalk 76 or 72? No!
Is it a requirement of Pharo to be constrained by other
Smalltalk implementations in order to still be a Smalltalk. No!
And then there is the argument of the outside worlds perception
of Smalltalk. Since when does the perception of the outside
world change whether or not Pharo is a Smalltalk? If the outside
world changed their mind and decided Smalltalk is wonderful,
does Pharo then all of the sudden become a Smalltalk? Ugh!
We are who we are. Our roots are our roots. Pharo should be
happy and proud to be a Smalltalk. A Smalltalk that is
continuing the heritage of innovation. A Smalltalk that is
continuing the heritage of inventing the future.
We have decided to be marketing driven. Marketing is important.
But marketing should determine who we are. And we should engage
in disingenuous marketing practice trying to hide our roots or
who we are.
Why do we things distancing ourselves from Smalltalk advantages
us? Just because there are lots of uneducated people who have
the wrong idea about Smalltalk. Clojure embraced its Lisp
heritage and is thriving. Lisp has every bit as much baggage.
This talk which inspired this thread called Pharo as Smalltalk.
He said, Pharo Smalltalk throughout the presentation. So in the
mind of the presenter and now in the mind of the audience at the
conference and of the video, Pharo is a Smalltalk. So now are we
to go about re-educating all these people that Pharo is not a
Smalltalk but is rather Smalltalk Inspired?
We don't require the outside world's permission. We don't need
their approval. We would like to have a reasonable and
sufficient number of them to catch the Pharo Smalltalk vision
and become a part of the family. Do we really desire everybody.
No. Do we desire those people who are so closed minded that the
mention of Smalltalk closes their mind because of their
ignorance. I don't think so.
Smalltalk is different. Pharo is Smalltalk and is different.
There will be those who don't like it because of the baggage
they bring, not the baggage we bring. And that is okay. All of
us think different. People need to embrace what empowers them
and quit complaining about what empowers somebody else. We need
to embrace empowering people who understand Smalltalk not the
people who don't get it for whatever reason. Let those people go
and be empowered somewhere else. We and they will both be better
off.
Feel free to shred and destroy my arguments. I am proud to use
Smalltalk. And currently Pharo is the Smalltalk I am choosing to
use. Currently I am studying C. A C library is required for my
project and in order to use Pharo and use this library, I need
sufficient C skills.
My opinion unapologetically.
And if the powers that be who are in charge of Pharo decide that
Smalltalk (in name) is baggage and Pharo is not Smalltalk. And
that marketing Pharo as Smalltalk is bad. Then please be honest
and change all references in the image of Smalltalk to Pharo.
Also change SmalltalkHub to PharoHub or SmalltalkInspiredHub.
If if not, be sincere and embrace Pharo Smalltalk.
Long live Smalltalk.
Jimmie
