Ezboard gets it wrong again
Ezboard has been having fairly epic problems with their server software, most of which is written in Cincom Smalltalk. Rather than actually explain the problems they have had, they just want to point the finger at us:
The current ezboard program is written in Smalltalk, a programming language that is becoming obsolete. The current program has many bugs that can't be fixed because each time the developers try to fix them, it causes something else to break. That seems to be the nature of Smalltalk. In the beginning, the program was simple, but as more and more features were demanded and added, it became more complicated -- and more buggy. It is also becoming difficult for ezboard to find skilled Smalltalk programmers. As a result, ezboard has had to choose to stay as it is, adding no new features and fixing no bugs, or move to a new architecture that will make it simpler and quicker to make changes, add new features, etc., and that will still be easy for board owners to customize. That is the purpose of the move.
Hmm. They wrote the original application in VWNC 3.0, and didn't use VisualWave (the then current HTML technology add on for VW). Instead, they wrote their own server from scratch. They didn't use a database on the back end, instead serializing objects to disk. Those two early decisions came back to haunt them in a big way - we actually spoke to them about dealing with them inside Smalltalk, by:
- Updating to the Web Toolkit, which works in conjunction with your stock web server
- Upgrading from serialized objects to a database back end
Instead, they decided to go with a full rewrite in something else, and a general blasting of our product as a way of making excuses. There's no reason for them to do that. Just look at what they say instead: fixing bugs creates other ones. That has nothing to do with Smalltalk (or any other language, for that matter) - it has to do with whatever process they use to develop code. If that's happening to them now, I guarantee that it will happen to them in the future, without regard to what development/deployment platform they end up using.
Update: Looks like they pulled that post down.
Update: As shown in the comments, you can see the original posting in the Google Cache.
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Comments
An Alternate Take
[Tom Sattler] July 29, 2006 13:55:21.000
I have an alternate take on this. Their stated problem (fixing bugs creates other ones) is a classis sign of a system that is simply not documented. The people who originally wrote the system (Vanchau Nguyen, primarily) are now gone, and there is no documentation as to how the system works, so the maintenance people are left to muddle thru as best they can, which apparently isn't very well. Had they used the Cincom Smalltalk Web Tooklit, they could simply send a message out to the NC list, or a post on comp.lang.smalltalk, and get their answer within a few minutes. Instead, they used a "roll your own" which by definition only the people who rolled it can know it, and they're gone. So WTF do they expect? (and from what I read, I gathered that Vanchau did not leave on his own, either)
Another site error, or was the post just deleted?
[Brian Rice] July 29, 2006 16:03:53.000
Developers
[] July 29, 2006 23:35:20.000
There are good and bad developers, in Basic, PHP, Smalltalk, Java, C, etc ... Smalltalk is not a "buggy" language... They'll get bugs in whatever "current" language they choose.
Google Cache and Ezboard's Current State
[Max] July 30, 2006 12:45:02.000
They took the thread down...
But you can still view it via Google cache:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:5MtWwmxk5uYJ:p080.ezboard.com/fezboardadministrationhelp.showMessage%3FtopicID%3D52619.topic+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a
Also, they have a post at their help forum for their new product:
http://help.yuku.com/forum/viewtopic/id/2855
Part of the second post states:
"The post count issues (where the Yuku profile post count is not updated to reflect new posts made on the ezboard network or where a newly imported account has zero total posts) are still being worked on. The root cause of these issues are on the ezboard Smalltalk based product and we are in the process of testing out a fix for these issues. Once we have completed our internal testing efforts we will release the fix to the ezboard network of servers."
Why go through the trouble to write "Smalltalk based" in there?
Now go back to the letter by Robert Labatt in the comments section of the earlier Ezboard thread from this blog:
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&entry=3319369309
Even though Labatt here states that it is not Smalltalk that is at issue, apparently his employees are still allowed to freely trash and/or blame it for problems to their userbase. And Vanchau never had any problem making changes and fixes...it's when he "left" that problems started to surface (Labatt came on in 2004, and ezboard has had several continuing bugs that they have never been able to correct). I believe Tom Sattler's comment is probably spot on.
One more thing...the ultimate irony is that for quite a while now they have been desperate to find a smalltalk engineer to at least help maintain their current product. Read the last entry of their "jobs" page:
http://www.yuku.com/homepage/jobs/t/Yuku-Jobs.jsp
And if you want a real example of how they are trying to add features and gain feedback on their new product which was rushed into service (complete with massive amounts of bugs and very unprofessionally) have a look here. Not even their developers know why certain features are being put in place:
http://help.yuku.com/forum/viewtopic/id/2757
This company cannot fix itself; thus they throw the blame elsewhere
Cincom reduced to trashing customers now?
[exSmalltalk programmer] July 31, 2006 15:07:55.549
The real reason ezboard and others are dumping Smalltalk is Cincom's weird sales and marketing strategy.
Who in their right mind is going to tie their companies fortunes to products from a vendor without a coherent, easy to understand pricing structure? Projects move to Java and .NET, killing Smalltalk programming jobs, which eventually leads to no more Smalltalk programmers.
In the end, Cincom is left with an ever shrinking market and is reduced to blaming customers for its own mistakes.
exSmalltalk programmer
[JT] July 31, 2006 18:24:49.968
You know, I wouldn't be surprised if you actually are an ezboard employee.
And everything you've just said can very easily be applied to that shrill of a company.
For your information, it's ezboard that trashes smalltalk. It wasn't Mr. Robertson who's letting or telling his employees to tell users on ezboard with complaints that their problems are in essense smalltalk related. It wasn't smalltalk that did not correct long standing bugs for years on their system.
I am not a smalltalk employee or in any way affiliated with them, but I was an ezboard user for a long time and have seen that company going downhill ever since 2004 with the advent of Robert Labatt's taking over. Deceptive advertising, awful customer service, extreme inefficiency, conflicting information...these have all become par for the course there. It's wrong, plain and simple, for ezboard to be allowed a free hand for its own mistakes and to pass it all off on smalltalk. And if smalltalk is "vanishing" its not ezboard's right to pass off its own incompetence to another company.
Re: Ezboard gets it wrong again
[ James Robertson] July 31, 2006 18:51:37.559
Comment by James Robertson
The Cincom Smalltalk group is profitable, and our year on year revenues are increasing (and have for the last 5 years).