On Jun 13, 2010, at 4:33 PM, Chris Muller wrote:

> DabbleDB is not the only Smalltalk casualty here, but, apparently,
> too, Avi himself.  Will Twitter use any of Smallthought's
> Smalltalk-based technology?  It appears, to me, they're intent on
> eventually shutting it all down.  60 days doesn't seem like a lot of
> time for a large customer to find a new system, wow...

I have no inside information, but the above seems me to be unwarranted. First, 
the style comes across as "assume the worst and place the burden on the other 
party to clear up the confusion." Can't we give someone who has done so much 
for our community the benefit of the doubt? 

Next, if you read the public announcements, it seems evident that the primary 
value was an analytics tool (and the people who built it), not a Seaside 
application. True, we haven't heard much about the technology behind Trendly, 
but why are you assuming it isn't Smalltalk? What language would you use if you 
were doing complex data analysis? It isn't like they got bought by Microsoft 
because they have demonstrated proficiency with C#. 

You might read the promise to "for now, we will continue to provide our 
software and technical supports" as "intent on eventually shutting it all 
down," but I read it as "change is coming, but we haven't determined exactly 
the direction." As to possible transitions over some future 60 day period, my 
understanding of the customer base is that there is no "large customer." The 
whole model of the system is focused on small data sets. Perhaps nothing could 
fully replace DabbleDB, but that doesn't mean that the people that have had the 
benefit of it are worse off if they eventually have to return to a less useful 
alternative.

Again, I have no information beyond what Avi and others have shared at 
conferences. I just choose to rejoice in the much-deserved success of a 
respected member of our community.

James
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