The meeting went pretty well - it was a friendly crowd - I was told that some of the Java advocates didn't show for the meeting. Maybe having Dave Astels talk last month, followed by me this month was too much Smalltalk for them - one way or the other. In any event, it was a lot like the DC talk I gave awhile back - lots of give and take with the audience, lots of good questions. My thanks to David Buck for setting it up.

Earlier in the day, I had a meeting with a customer in the Ottawa area. They are mostly still on VW 3 - they have been avoiding moving from ENVY. However, a lot of what we have done in VW - especially the network clients work since 5i.3 - is stuff they really, really need. I gave my stock What's next in Cincom Smalltalk talk - they were pleased with what they saw of the new tools, and pleased by what they saw in terms of upgraded functionality. A lot of good questions, with answers that made them happy - a good visit.

After the XP meeting, there was another customer visit this AM. I met with an account that Dave Buck has been helping - they have migrated, with his help, from 2.5.2 to 5i.4 (they plan to go to 7.1, but are in the middle of their development cycle). They liked the look of the RB and the new debugger, and specially liked the RB extensions for SUnit - Dave Buck has made them into testing believers. This was a good meeting as well - and it ended on a very positive note - we met a woman who had only just learnd Smalltalk - shee's a domain expert at this outfit, with a CS background - but had not done development since college. Her statement to us:

Smalltalk was so asy to learn. Dave (Buck) helpd me along, but it was so simple that I was able to pick it up within a few weeks

Not an exact quote; I'm going from memory here. I constantly hear from people that "they can't find Smalltalkers". They aren't hard to train - it's a simple language!

One more thing - I want to thank David Mattinson of Software Mechanics - without his help I never would have found my hotel last night! If you need Software Development help in Ottawa area, look him up - he's a great guy.