Btw, did Self ever work? At all? The last I remember it was in a similar state to Electron without the M$ adds in Visual Studio, i.e. the samples from the site don’t build.
Sent from Mail for Windows 10 From: Thierry Goubier Sent: Monday, November 6, 2017 2:48 PM To: pharo-users@lists.pharo.org Subject: Re: [Pharo-users] perspective request for those earningalivingfromSmalltalk Hi Andrew, Le 06/11/2017 à 19:59, Andrew Glynn a écrit : > I /suspect/ that a (mostly repressed) underlying sense that a reliable, > inexpensive platform, if popular, would have been more detrimental to > IBM than to its smaller competitors. The same goes for the VisualAge > family -> Smalltalk (sold now by Instantiations at v. 9.0), Java, C++ > and COBOL. One of the (largely unthought) reasons for Smalltalk’s > difficulties in the 1990’s, when hardware could run it decently, was > that it took a fair number of resources/time to write a decent version, > while using it would have been a bigger advantage to smaller companies > than to the companies with the money to develop one. The result was > that only a few, very expensive versions were publicly available. VA > Smalltalk still retails at ~$8500 / seat. > > Those kinds of hazy (because not admitted to oneself) reasons for doing > things end up resulting in apparently contradictory actions such as > spending large amounts writing something, releasing it, then failing to > support it with any sales or marketing push, and even actively > undermining it. Nobody wants to fully admit that inefficiencies are > actually to their advantage, which is the reason it’s repressed > (implying both known /and/ not known, simultaneously). > > I’m totally speculating of course and may be dead wrong, but it fits > with other IBM actions and non-actions. IBM is a strange company that > sees itself, partly for good reason, as a business that must make money > /and/ as an international resource that must continue to exist. Though > the latter depends to a degree on the former, they don’t always imply > the same specific decisions. > > Interestingly, to prove the scalability of a VM based system IBM wrote > “RVM” (originally meaning “Renaissance VM”), and proved near linear > scaling to 1024 cores, but RVM is a VM for Squeak and earlier versions > of Pharo, not IBM Smalltalk (the source is available, on GitHub I believe). https://github.com/smarr/RoarVM I wouldn't say it is IBM, instead that it is David Ungar work (of Self and a few other things)... Has probably ties to the Jikes RVM as well. > Arca Noae (meaning “New Box”), the company that released v.5.0 in June, > was set up because too many big customers can’t migrate crucial apps > from OS/2 to anything else. The new version looks more modern, > borrowing icons and other things from Linux, mainly KDE. It can run a > fair number of Win32 apps, and supports virtually all modern hardware, > scaling to 128 threads and 16GB RAM, though it’s still 32 bit in most > senses. > > As you can imagine, given the base requirements are a Pentium Pro with > 64MB RAM, on an average laptop today it flies. I'm not nostalgic, but the object model and how it was handling versionning was cool. Anybody remember Taligent? Thierry > > Andrew > > Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for > Windows 10 > > *From: *Richard Sargent <mailto:rsarg...@5x5.on.ca> > *Sent: *Monday, November 6, 2017 11:55 AM > *To: *'Any question about pharo is welcome' > <mailto:pharo-users@lists.pharo.org> > *Subject: *Re: [Pharo-users] perspective request for those earning > alivingfromSmalltalk > > Andrew, > > I worked with OS/2 in the early 90s and really liked it; I adopted it > for my personal use as well. I really enjoyed reading the details you > provided earlier. > > I have a hypothesis that when IBM tried to sell OS/2 (Warp) via a retail > channel that it "hurt". A company whose DNA was channel sales would find > dealing with retail issues to be entirely different from everything they > knew. So, I speculate that there were enough people to felt (and argued) > that OS/2 wasn't "worth it". > > Any thoughts you would care to share on that supposition would be > appreciated. > > *From:*Pharo-users [mailto:pharo-users-boun...@lists.pharo.org] *On > Behalf Of *Andrew Glynn > *Sent:* November 6, 2017 04:18 > *To:* Any question about pharo is welcome > *Subject:* Re: [Pharo-users] perspective request for those earning a > livingfromSmalltalk > > Thank you. I will see if I can get to it today or tomorrow. > > Andrew > > Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for > Windows 10 > > *From: *Davorin Rusevljan <mailto:davorin.rusevl...@gmail.com> > *Sent: *Monday, November 6, 2017 4:17 AM > *To: *Any question about pharo is welcome > <mailto:pharo-users@lists.pharo.org> > *Subject: *Re: [Pharo-users] perspective request for those earning a > livingfromSmalltalk > > On Sat, Oct 28, 2017 at 7:59 PM, Andrew Glynn <aglyn...@gmail.com > <mailto:aglyn...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > Your history is accurate, but there’s a few things I’d like to add, > due to having been employed by IBM at exactly that period working > specifically on VisualAge, not only for Smalltalk, but for Java, C++ > and Cobol as well. (my NDA’s finally having expired also helps > 😉). It’s not a correction or contradiction, but a complement to > your description, providing a relevant but different perspective. > > Andrew, > > please find a way to write an article or blog post on this subject. It > is priceless. > > davorin >
