Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants

Phil Myers gets to part of the problem here:

What's important is that it surfaces an interesting perspective that I've always wanted to talk about with regards to marketing. One of the reasons that marketing isn't trusted (and there are at least five others) is that it's motives are not pure. Far too often, we spend money on things that fall into this general category of 'awareness of the brand'. Hard to argue with the need but it creates an opening for programs that are ego-driven, notoriety-driven, personal fulfillment-driven, and creativity-driven.

The problem is deeper though - it has to do with an often complete communications gap between the marketing people and the people who create the product/service being sold. That's often not solely marketing's fault, either - too often the product groups don't talk to marketing, on the grounds that "they won't understand anyway". Thus you get a self fulfilling prophecy, and no one ends up happy. You can have all the authenticity and purity of motive possible, but if you don't understand your company's products, you're still not going to get anywhere.

What are people looking for when they come to your website, or look at some of your marketing collateral? Information. What problem(s) do you solve with your product/service, and how do you solve them? Why is your solution better than the next guy's? How can people make use of your product/service? If that kind of information is hard to find, then whatever you do have available is irrelevant.

Authenticity matters, but only if it's connected to real information.

Technorati Tags: PR

Perhaps this is why OO as done in Smalltalk differs so much from OO done in languages like Java, C#, and C++:

Smalltalk is a language that makes true OO programming so cheap that you're more often than not benefitting from a pure-OO (possibly with patterns) approach to coding for pretty much everything. The syntax is negligable, so you're not really adding keystrokes to your task. There are no files in an image-based operating environment, so you are free to just add classes at will. Duck-typing is everywhere, so types are determined by structural conformance, rather than rigid class hierarchy organization, etc.

However, Java is a totally different beast. Adding a new class to a program in Java is one of the most intensely heavy-weight things you can do in Java! Even defining a new interface, arguably one of the cheapest things to do at the file-level in Java, implies you now need to adjust a number of other classes so that they statically "implement" that interface. Also, there is a strong distinction between internal and user-defined types (int vs. Integer, et. al.). There is no uniform access in Java (myField versus getMyField()), which means you no longer have the cheap syntax to avoid writing getters and setters, which means that you always incur a small performance hit when accessing attributes.

In Smalltalk, it doesn't incur any cost to do OO; in the mainstream languages, it does. This leads to lots of people talking past each other - most Smalltalkers have slogged away in a mainstream language; most of the rest have never seen Smalltalk, much less developed in it.

The article is well worth reading in full - don't just take the quoted snippet as enough :) One small caveat - Smalltalk may be unheard of in many development shops, but it's not dead. Smalltalk is very profitable at Cincom, and was the best performer for Cincom last year :)

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, java, OO

Damir Horvat summarizes the answers to a question he asked about Smalltalk on "Stack Overflow" recently - the upshot is, it's what you use when you have a complex object model and requirements that aren't set in stone.

Thinking about that for a second or two, that's most projects :) Want to be more productive and get done faster? Try it now.

One thing I don't like about the top answer there is this:

"You spend much time correcting errors that other (typed) languages detect at compile time. This means you have to test more and spend more time with trivial syntax problems than in other languages"

Having sent a good deal of time on two decent sized projects - BottomFeeder and Silt - I can say with a fair bit of assurance that it's simply not the case. People without much Smalltalk experience are always convinced of this; to their way of thinking, how could it be otherwise? The reality is, the trivial kinds of type errors being talked about almost never happen in Smalltalk. Heck, they happened to me a lot more in "C" due to the brain dead type system being combined with static checks. Bottom line - that's something most people simply have to experience themselves before they believe it.

Technorati Tags: dynamic language, stack overflow

Ars Technica reports that F-Script has gone beta:

F-Script offers a new way to create and interact with Cocoa objects using a simple scripting language and a Smalltalk-like development environment. Recently, the F-Script shell went beta , providing a new way to interactively build Cocoa.

We did a podcast with Philippe Mougin about F-Script last year; you can listen to that here.

Patrick Logan spots Smalltalk in an unexpected location

I saw a message flash by on Twitter earlier today:

What's the best desktop scripting language for woking with http, REST and XML?

The conventional wisdom is that something like Perl, Python, or Ruby would be simplest, and that Smalltalk is "too big". But is it really? I've just fired up a base Smalltalk image, and loaded in the network client code. It's consuming 16.5 MB.... and my MacBook Pro has 4 GB.

So is that really heavy? Which is going to be more productive - writing some scripting code in a text file and trying to run it until it works, or writing Smalltalk in a workspace and using the debugger and inspector to help make it work?

Heck, if you're truly against having the environment running to do "simple" tasks, just write some Smalltalk code in a text file and do this:

visual visual.im -fileIn myScript.st

You can download Cincom's Smalltalk right here.

While I was in Cincinnati, Parallels had trouble suspending, and just hung. I killed it, and now it won't start back up - it's saved in the hung state. Anyone have any idea what to do? The menu options for restoring a snapshot are all disabled...

Update: I called Parallels support, and they were helpful. There was a silly request to reboot the Mac, but the basic problem was two files that made Parallels believe it was still backing up:

• bigUglyName.mem
• config.sav

The .mem file had a large hex looking name in curly braces - deleting that and the .sav file made everything work again.

Technorati Tags: parallels, windows, VM

Related to the last item I posted on changes in the news business is this bit of unreality from Stu Bykofsky:

This company should charge online visitors a small fee, maybe $5 a month, for our content - which is copyrighted, then sue the pants off anyone stealing it.

Should Google "pick up" (steal) our stuff, if we successfully sued them for $1 billion, two good things happen: 1) Our money problems are solved; 2) everyone else will stop stealing our content.

Left unexamined by Mr. Byofsky: If Google (et. al.) aren't allowed to "pick up" (link to) the content, then pray tell: how would any of the potential readers know it exists? This isn't 1978, and people looking for news don't have to rely on the local news outlet for it. If your links don't show up in searches, you simply don't exist.

Technorati Tags: news, newspapers

Mathew Ingram points out what a lot of people in the newspaper business are continuing to miss:

As Mark Potts at Recovering Journalist points out (along with a few others), this entire argument is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the industry. Newspapers have *never* been paid directly by readers for the news. When readers pay for a paper at the box or at the store or by subscription, they are paying for a small fraction of the content in the newspaper — maybe the first half a dozen pages or so, for a large metropolitan daily. Everything else is paid for by advertising.

I think there's one thing lost in a lot of the analysis though: the entire consumption model for news is changing. Not just the flip from paper to net, either. Newspapers - like broadcast news - are trying to do broad coverage of "everything". The NY TImes, for instance, has a metro section, a sports section, an editorial page, style (etc, etc).

Compare that to what you read on the net. Gadget news? Engadget, Gizmodo. Politics? Opinions from various political bloggers. Tech news? Again, subdivided down by segment. What you're seeing is a vast creation of niche news reporting, and the existing media giants are stuck in the old "everything" model. Jeff Jarvis is only partly correct when he says that newspapers have to go hyper-local; they also need to find a specific niche.

Even aggregators tend to focus - Techmeme doesn't aggregate non-tech news, for instance. That's the big change hitting the media right now. Most of the people in media are focused on the decline of paper - they should be paying attention to the decline of generalism.

Technorati Tags: newspapers, media

On today's Smalltalk Daily, James Savidge conducts a walkthrough of the ObjectSTudio Designer (GUI building) tool. It's an introduction; he'll be following up with more. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch on Vimeo:

ObjectStudio Designer Walkthrough from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, objectstudio

Head on over to Stack Overflow and let them know.

We had a conference call with a customer using ObjectStudio 8, and during the call he said this:

If I were doing this in Ruby, I'd still be waiting. Smalltalk is just so fast

We like to hear that kind of thing :)

Technorati Tags: objectstudio

Dave Buck has posted details on the next meeting of the Ottawa Smalltalk Users Group:

Alan Knight will talk about some of the upcoming Cincom Smalltalk releases. He will describe some of the interesting and perhaps lesser-known improvements in the VisualWorks 7.6 release, changes to release schedule and process, and some of the major items planned for the fall release. This includes vastly improved Internationalization, improvements to look and feel, COM and ActiveX support, improvements to Store, 64-bit, and briefly touch on the upcoming Web Velocity release.

It's at the same place that I gave my Seaside presentation in September - The Code Factory at 246 Queen Street in Ottawa. The meeting is at 6 PM on February 10th.

Technorati Tags: objectstudio, visualworks

I've seen plenty of Twitter spam, but it looks like the sorts of tools that started appearing 4-5 years ago for blogs are popping up for Twitter now:

Last week, a commercial Twitter spamming tool (tweettornado.com) pitching itself as a “fully automated advertising software for Twitter” hit the market, potentially empowering phishers, spammers, malware authors and everyone in between with the ability to generate bogus Twitter accounts and spread their campaigns across the micro-blogging service.

As ZDnet points out, creating this kind of tools is dead simple - Twitter doesn't even verify your registration address when you sign up. This can't be the first tool of this kind though; there have just been too many spammers around.

Technorati Tags: twitter, social media

Spotted in Planet Squeak:

Release 1.1 of Pier is available.

Pier is a CMS system written in Smalltalk; I released Todor Girba's ESUG video on Pier last week. YOu can get the details on the 1.1 release here.

On today's Smalltalk Daily we take a look at using graphic images in an ObjectStudio application. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Using Bitmap Graphics in ObjectSTudio from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube

It now looks like you can follow someone on Twitter without actually following them - see tweetstalk.com

You have to love their honesty about what they're doing:

Not sure I like this idea...

While I was coming in yesterday, the forecast was calling for one or two inches. It was actually more like 6 to 10 - which is why last night's event was cancelled. I just took two shots from the lobby here at the hotel, while waiting for my ride to corporate:

Technorati Tags: snow, ice, cincinnati

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we take a look at the Dialog box API in VisualWorks. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

VisualWorks Dialog Box API from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

The theory seems to be "the more the merrier" - there are going to be six versions of Windows 7 available. When you get OS X, there's one version. When you download the typical Linux distro there are two: Server and client. Why on earth would you want six? And who would want "Starter:, limited to:

• No Aero Tweaks
• No more than 3 simultaneous applications

The team that came up with that idea should be part of that 5000 that are getting laid off. From all the reports I've seen and read, Windows 7 looks like it's got the technical goods down. It would be a real shame if the marketing people killed it. I can already see the "switch" ad campaign Apple will brew up in response to this....

Technorati Tags: windows7, vista

The spirit was willing, but the weather has intervened - roads are bad here in the Cincinnati area, and the organizers cancelled. We'll try to reschedule.

In the meantime, check out Michael's video - that was one of my demos tonight :)

Technorati Tags: seaside, web velocity

Another printing press goes silent, replaced by the LCD screen - the 82 year old Montreal Monitor.

Technorati Tags: newspapers

I'll be at the Agile Roundtable tonight, presenting Seaside and Web Velocity. If you're in the Cincinnati/Dayton area, come on out and see what's cool about Smalltalk and Seaside!

We'll have Cincom Smalltalk NC CD's to hand out, and it should be a fun time

Update: I've arrived here in Cincinnati, so I will definitely be at the meeting tonight. See you there!

Technorati Tags: seaside, web velocity

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we take a look at how you specify hotkeys in the ObjectStudio design tool. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch it on Vimeo:

Setting Mnemonic hotkeys in ObjectStudio from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

Today we got drywall:

I thought the proposed delay of the flip to digital TV was a bad idea, but I really didn't think things could be made worse. Well - it seems I lack imagination. Wired reports:

The DTV Delay Bill pushes the date back to June 12, but also allows broadcasters to switch to digital unilaterally, creating the prospect of a patchwork roll out. That peculiarity -- and the notion that delay will do nothing to suddenly inspire a Nielsen-estimated 6 million households to do in the next four months what they haven't bothered to do for the past three years -- killed the bill last week.

So the companies that bid on the VHF spectrum are stuck for another few months, and the rest of the country gets random action. I love it when a plan fails to come together!

Technorati Tags: dtv, digital tv

So I'm looking at the weather for Dayton tomorrow, as I'm flying in for a meeting at Cincom HQ. I see this at weather.com:

Who knew that was golfing weather?

On today's Smalltalk Daily, we continue with accelerator keys in ObjectStudio - and see how to add them to an application at runtime. To watch, click on the image below:

You can also watch on Vimeo:

Dynamic Accelerator Keys in ObjectStudio from James Robertson on Vimeo.

Or on YouTube:

We had to leave our friend's house to come back home - it's a school night, and my wife has medication she needs to take. All heck broke loose while I was in the car :) The Cards drove, got stopped, punted and pinned the Steelers on the one. A holding call on a pass play gave the Cards a safety - and the followed up after the free kick with a TD. I missed 4 minutes of game time, but it was the worst four minutes to miss...

Update: The fireworks weren't over - Pittsburgh marched down for a go ahead TD, and the game ended on a Cards fumble as the Steelers put pressure on Warner. The first half was pretty pedestrian, but the second half was a wild ride. Great game!

Technorati Tags: football, superbowl

Oh.my.god.

The Cards had the ball inside the 5 with 18 seconds left, and the Steelers number 92, James Harrison - a lineman - picked it off and ran it back 100 yards for a touchdown. Longest touchdown play in superbowl history. What a turn around in the Cards' fortunes!

Best line after the play - "He's really enjoying his oxygen".

Technorati Tags: football, superbowl

ESUG is in Brest, France this year - and they are looking for student volunteers:

If you're a student wanting to attend ESUG, have you considered being a student volunteer? Student volunteers help keep the conference running smoothly; in return, they have free accommodations, while still having most of the time to enjoy the conference. Apply soon: there are a limited number of student volunteer positions available. Student volunteers will be notified by the end of May 2009.

Get the full details on the volunteer program here.

Technorati Tags: esug09

After the first quarter, even though Pittsburgh was only up by 3, it looked like the game was going all their way. The Cards had the ball for like 1 minute, and their offense looked pathetic. Now? With the first half wrapping up, it looks like it's actually going to be a game.

Technorati Tags: football, superbowl

Troy notes that sometimes, well intentioned acts go badly awry - the new consumer safety law might end up shuttering library access for kids:

It seems that Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, apparently in response to the lead scare from China, and it's causing some problems for libraries and (possibly) bookstores. Printers' ink contains lead. Products for children under 12 have to be tested and certified as having a safe lead content.

I have a friend who's involved with the girl scouts, and worries over this are running rampant through the craft people who work with the scouts.

This isn't only a government problem - I hear about companies blocking things like IM "to prevent the spread of viruses" all the time. I wonder how many times they consider how much customer and prospect communication gets whacked as a side effect of the well intentioned screening?

In business and in government, it's helpful to examine baseline assumptions and downstream impacts before taking action.

On this week's podcast we talk to Terry Raymond, the original author of the debugger that ships with Cincom's Smalltalk products (both VisualWorks and ObjectStudio). We talked about where the debugger came from, and what motivated Terry to write it. We also got into some issues that the debugger has now - mostly edge case type stuff. Finally, we talked a little bit about the future of debugging in Smalltalk. Grab the podcast here.

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, debugging

I'm flipping though a copy of CRM (one of the nearly infinite number of magazines that fill my mailbox), and I stumbled on this:

Your marketing team should be growing during a recession... or at least redesigned

This is part of a compilation of tweets that the magazine received recently. I don't think that comment is right - the last thing you need in hard times is more flash and glitz. What you need is more transparency - tell people what problems your product or service can solve. You don't need a bunch of fluff from people desperately looking to "tell a story". What you need is facts about how you can solve the very real problems that your prospects have, at a reasonable price.

Next comes the drywall, and then the fixtures get put in:

Chris Anderson has kind of a kind of schizophrenic article up on free online services. On the one hand, he says this:

With physical stuff, samples must be doled out sparingly -- there are real costs to be paid. With bits, the free versions are too cheap to meter and can be spread far and wide. That's why so many people businesses (expensive!) are turning into software businesses (cheap!), which is why your cranky tax accountant has morphed into free TurboTax online, your stockbroker is now a trading Web site and your travel agent is more likely a glorified search engine.

Which is part of why so many things are freely accessible online - including our NC download. However, it's not a panacea, as Chris notes later on:

The standard business model for Web companies that don't actually have a business model is advertising. A popular service will have lots of users, and a few ads on the side will pay the bills. Two problems have emerged with that model: the price of online ads and click-through rates. Facebook is an amazingly popular service, but it also an amazingly ineffective advertising platform. Even if you could figure out what the right ad to serve next to a high-school girl's party pictures might be, she and her friends probably won't click on it. No wonder Facebook applications get less than $1 per 1,000 views (compared to around $20 on big media Web sites).

This is why the "do it all with ads" model is not an answer. It works for some entities, like Google (but note that they sell the ad service, they don't actually rely on the ads themselves) - it works less well for sites that want to fund themselves via ads. That's the ugly place that Facebook has landed in, and that Twitter is now pondering. As Chris says, the new revenue model guy at Twitter has his work cut out for him.

What this reminds me of is the experience of being a teacher. If you let the students get away with misbehavior early in the year, it's nearly impossible to enforce discipline later. If you come in with a really strict set of rules that you stick to, it's pretty simple to loosen up as the year goes by and the class settles in. To take that out to business, consumers (and business) have been trained by sites like Twitter - things are free, and they've always been free. Trying to add some kind of pay model now is really hard. I suspect that new companies starting up will have to have a paid model on day one - otherwise their users will have the same expectations that the Twitter user base does.

I think the days of "eyeballs are enough" are over. Eyeballs don't actually pay the bills.

Technorati Tags: free, business model

When I was searching for info on my KVM switch this morning, this "bad site" thing happened to me, too:

We're not quite sure what's going on, but a couple of minutes ago any search result from Google started being flagged as malware with a message stating "This site may harm your computer". Including Google's own websites

Follow the link for a screen capture; I thought Google was just flagging the Javascript Belkin was using and moved along. Steve Kelly thinks it's 3rd party software run amok.

Update: Google explains the problem (which has been fixed)

Technorati Tags: googlemalware, google

My wife has an ancient PC she's not been using for awhile, but it has old pictures and such on it. She doesn't need or want the machine, but she does want the stuff that's on it. So, I'm pulling that all off to a portable USB drive. It's an actual upgrade for me - my old Linux box is a 400 Mhz Pentium II that no longer seems to want to run Samba :)

I don't have space for a second monitor on my desk, but I did have an old Belkin KVM switch lying around. I hooked that up, but I had absolutely no idea what the keyboard switch was to flip. Fortunately, having access to Google means that nothing is ever really lost - a search later and I found out the magic sequence.

Once this copy finishes, I'll grab a copy of Ubuntu and see how it works on this old 1 Ghz machine.

Technorati Tags: linux, kvm