Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView Cincom Product Manager jrobertson@cincom.com Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:44:48 EST http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/images/cst_small.jpg Smalltalk Tidbits, Industry Rants http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView 50 81 en-us James A. Robertson Copyright 2007 Cincom Systems, Inc. 2008-03-07T08:44:48-05:00 39.214103 -76.878807 Hall of Bad Ideas http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Hall_of_Bad_Ideas&entry=3382331741 enterprisey Fri, 07 Mar 2008 08:35:41 EST

Every so often, someone pipes up and talks about how Apple could really compete in the enterprise if only they would combine with a company like IBM or Oracle. This week, it's Don Tennant at ComputerWorld:

In our "Macintosh Insurrection" cover story in this week's print edition, an earlier version of which was posted on our site last month, Rob Mitchell looks at why such an insurrection could happen in the enterprise, and why it probably won't. The story raises an intriguing question: If Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's bluster about acquiring Apple back in the late ‘90s had panned out, would Apple be more enterprise-friendly today?

Can you imagine Oracle and Apple together? Oracle can't create a usable installer, much less a usable OS. I'm not sure I want to contemplate what the OS would have looked like under the direction of Oracle UI "thinking"

And IBM? IBM is a hugely successful enterprise player, but you can say describe everything they know about the consumer space with an ink-free pen and some air.

I think I like Apple the way they are - usable systems have enough value, thanks very much. And if enterprisy IT shops can't grasp that, then they deserve Vista and WS*...

]]> 3382331741 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIPBServlet?guid=3382331741 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?guid=3382331741 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Hall_of_Bad_Ideas&entry=3382331741 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Hall_of_Bad_Ideas&entry=3382331741 <a href="http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/troy/blogView">Troy Brumley</a> 2008-03-07T08:44:48-05:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Comment by <a href="http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/troy/blogView">Troy Brumley</a></p> <p> <p>While it would be entertaining to watch Steve and Ellison going at it (my money would be on Steve) this idea should be taken out and shot.</p> <p>Enterprise friendly is so last century. When you see the social networking web and groups within enterprises trying to get around the limitations of enterprise infrastructure, you should realize that Apple on its own is better for the industry. Consolidation leads to ossification, shareholder value is a temporary gain that is outweighed by lost innovation.</p></p> </div> Re: Hall of Bad Ideas http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIServlet?guid=3382331741 Enterprisey Defined http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Enterprisey_Defined&entry=3374693353 enterprisey Sun, 09 Dec 2007 22:49:13 EST

Well, if this isn't the definition of enterprisey thought, I don't know what is:

Robert Scoble misses this point: unlike consumer software, where sex appeal is critical to attracting a commercially-viable audience, enterprise software has a different set of goals.
Enterprise software is all about helping organizations conduct their basic business in a better, more cost-effective manner. In software jargon, it’s intended to “enable core business processes” with a high degree of reliability, security, scalability, and so on. These aren’t sexy, cool attributes, but are absolutely essential to the smooth running of businesses, organizations, and governments around the world.

Hmm - iTunes and Amazon process millions of dollars worth of transactions, and yet they both manage to be easy - and *gasp* - fun *gasp* - to use. I guess Michael Krigsman subscribes to this theory of software:

If it was hard to write, it should be hard to use

Can we push people like Krigsman aside, and get some people who understand ease of use instead?

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]]> 3374693353 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIPBServlet?guid=3374693353 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?guid=3374693353 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Enterprisey_Defined&entry=3374693353 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Enterprisey_Defined&entry=3374693353 <a href="http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/troy/blogView">Troy Brumley</a> 2007-12-10T08:45:48-05:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Comment by <a href="http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/troy/blogView">Troy Brumley</a></p> <p> <p>While I don't believe that software should be hard to use, or even all that hard to write, I think your iTunes and Amazon comparisons are bogus. Their customer facing sides are designed for customers. Who knows what lurks on the other side of the intertubes?</p> </p> </div> which side of the server are you on??? blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Enterprisey_Defined&entry=3374693353 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Enterprisey_Defined&entry=3374693353 James Robertson 2007-12-10T09:27:43-05:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Comment by James Robertson</p> <p> <p>Troy, I'm talking about the front ends of enterprise software - which generally suck eggs. </p> </p> </div> Ummmm blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Enterprisey_Defined&entry=3374693353 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Enterprisey_Defined&entry=3374693353 Joerg Beekmann 2007-12-10T09:32:14-05:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>This is an over simplified view of things. Corporate software both customer and internal facing has to be cost effective both in development cost and opportunity cost. That is to say in some way it has to add more to the bottom line than it cost to create and has to add more than building something else. Making software attractive, simple and easy to use is hard and costs a lot in resources. But for software that aims to attract and hold customers its essential. Internal software on the other hand is used by people who are paid to use it. It has to be functional and aim to minimize errors. A joy to use it doesn't have to be. Every manager I've worked for will take two workmanlike, well functioning applications that each add 100K/moth to the bottom line over one polished application that add 120K every time. </p> </div> Horses and courses blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Enterprisey_Defined&entry=3374693353 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Enterprisey_Defined&entry=3374693353 W^L+ 2007-12-10T22:59:36-05:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>In my limited exposure to &quot;enterprise&quot; software, it not only has hideous and unintuitive user interfaces, it isn&#39;t very reliable either. Instead, it seems that CIOs read magazines like InfoWeek and eWeek to find out what buzzwords to expect/require this year. Or as the other employees ask whenever there is a rollout or upgrade, &quot;what are you gonna break this time?&quot;</p><p>Massive failures such as applications developed for the FBI, IRS, and SSA are &quot;enterprise&quot; products that did not meet the organization&#39;s needs or even function at all. &quot;Enterprise&quot; is far too often just a code-word for &quot;you&#39;ll be paying consultants for several years to fix this mess.&quot;<br /></p><p>&nbsp;</p> </div> Enterprise Does Not Mean Reliable Or Even Functioning http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIServlet?guid=3374693353 Low Expectations and Software http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Low_Expectations_and_Software&entry=3371353784 enterprisey Thu, 01 Nov 2007 07:09:44 EST

I've been pondering the post from Steve Jones that I commented on the other day; it was while looking over the comments that I had a small epiphany - would Jones accept the "well, you can't expect much from the masses" theory in a home improvement project? Would he accept shoddy work from a contractor as quickly as he seems willing to accept it from a developer?

In general, how happy would he be if his attitude toward accepting mediocrity extended to every service he paid for? Does he just shrug his shoulders when a repair guy comes out and botches a job?

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]]> 3371353784 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIPBServlet?guid=3371353784 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?guid=3371353784 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Low_Expectations_and_Software&entry=3371353784 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Low_Expectations_and_Software&entry=3371353784 jimmy zero 2007-11-01T13:14:38-05:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Unfortunately, I don't think it's ever been demonstrated that the mediocre will create quality work given the right tool. <p> Nor, despite decades of wishful yearning by our industry, has an has it ever been shown that building software is a bona fide engineering practice as practice is understood by those who do engineer. There is a reason Knuth's title was <i>The Art of Prgramming</i>. <p> Like it or not, programming is a hard craft.</p> </div> blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Low_Expectations_and_Software&entry=3371353784 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Low_Expectations_and_Software&entry=3371353784 2007-11-01T17:20:14-05:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Home improvement. How would the home owner know? There are a couple of shows I&#39;ve seen on TV where some TV home improvement media star takes&nbsp; home construction projects apart and fixes the disaster. Stuff like oh like a furnace return air vent in the garage so we can expose everyone in the house to carbon monoxide, or electrical wires run thru steel beams so they can chaft and electrify the entire wall, waiting for the owner. Oh and wrapped around the copper water piping too... <br /></p><p>It&#39;s not as if the home owner can do a &#39;Code Review&#39;. Still I&#39;m afraid to ask if Mr Jones if he even accepts that practice?&nbsp; <br /></p> </div> http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIServlet?guid=3371353784 You get what you expect http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=You_get_what_you_expect&entry=3371262482 enterprisey Wed, 31 Oct 2007 05:48:02 EST

I was fairly appalled when I read this "enterpirse" piece from Steve Jones - the fact that he's in charge of any project at all is pretty depressing. Not because he's actively opposed to dynamic languages - that's just a symptom. No, it's this kind of attitude:

This is the reason I am against dynamic languages and all of the fan-boy parts of IT. IT is no-longer a hackers paradise populated only by people with a background in Computer Science, it is a discipline for the masses and as such the IT technologies and standards that we adopt should recognise that stopping the majority doing something stupid is the goal, because the smart guys can always cope.

If you are willing to put up with bad developers and poor practices, I guess you'll come out the other end believing this sort of thing. In Jones' world, the best you can do is fight against the mediocrity. Gosh forbid you do any selective hiring, or train the staff you have - or even hold them to high expectations. No, better to expect nothing and get nothing.

That thinking combines pretty well with this NY Times piece I read yesterday - on why Enterprise applications tend to be hard to use. I'll go so far as to say that they'll keep being hard to use until the kind of thinking illustrated by Jones leaves IT.

Hat tip to Patrick Logan, who led me to the Jones post and to this one from Steve Vinoski.

]]> 3371262482 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIPBServlet?guid=3371262482 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?guid=3371262482 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=You_get_what_you_expect&entry=3371262482 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=You_get_what_you_expect&entry=3371262482 Jason Rogers 2007-10-31T13:40:28-05:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>The New York Times piece touches on it at the end, but I think the real issue lies in the schools. The kids who are getting trained in IT are getting sub-standard training in many respects, in many universities (with a few exceptions of course -- UIUC, GA Tech, ...). You don't get much in the way of usability in schools, you get very little in the way of formal testing (test first or otherwise), there isn't much in the way of software design. Maybe I am just too sheltered and don't see it, but it seems like the emphasis is usually on something that "gets the grade" not something that is designed well, works, is useable, etc. So, what we end up with is the majority of kids coming out of school, into the workforce, who still treat tasks like they're tests that need to be passed with an A or B.</p> </div> Yeah, it's in the schools... blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=You_get_what_you_expect&entry=3371262482 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=You_get_what_you_expect&entry=3371262482 Terry 2007-10-31T14:51:33-05:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Comment by Terry</p> <p> <p>I think it is asking too much to expect college graduates to be well trained programmers. It is common in the engineering disciplines for the schools to teach theory and leave the practical practices to the industry. My degree is in electrical engineering and you generally don't consider a new college engineering hire to be a &quot;real&quot; engineer until he has worked in industry for at least a couple of years.</p> </p> </div> Re: You get what you expect blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=You_get_what_you_expect&entry=3371262482 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=You_get_what_you_expect&entry=3371262482 Jason Rogers 2007-11-02T11:22:26-05:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Terry-- </p> <p>I don't expect them to be "well trained programmers." I expect that they should have *some* practical experience. My problem with it is that it is so easy to integrate practical experience, but often it's not done. Maybe I'm just a whiner...</p> </div> http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIServlet?guid=3371262482 Buzzword Bingo http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Buzzword_Bingo&entry=3365775486 enterprisey Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:38:06 EDT

It's a long way from the clean world of Smalltalk to the buzzword compliant, enterprisey world of SOA - but Bobby Woolf has made the jump. I'd call it a jump in the wrong direction, but hey - at least his Bingo Card is always full :)

]]> 3365775486 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIPBServlet?guid=3365775486 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?guid=3365775486 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIServlet?guid=3365775486 ERP for the Enteprisey http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=ERP_for_the_Enteprisey&entry=3364580010 enterprisey Tue, 14 Aug 2007 21:33:30 EDT

Nick Carr has an article up that enterprisey types ought to read - who knows, they might even learn something.

]]> 3364580010 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIPBServlet?guid=3364580010 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?guid=3364580010 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIServlet?guid=3364580010 On being a follower http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 enterprisey Sun, 05 Aug 2007 11:42:44 EDT

The enterprisey one managed to linkbait me this morning, in his "why Smalltalk doesn't get used" post. First, I'll note that Cincom Smalltalk's user base is up, and our profits are up accordingly - so there must be some happy users out there :) But look at his rationales:

  • Microsoft didn't invent Smalltalk, IBM doesn't push it and Oracle doesn't support it and therefore Enterprise Architects can't incorporate it into their power vendor strategy

Hmm. So that would explain the rise in interest in Ruby how, exactly? Never mind that Smalltalk connects quite well to Oracle - the "database of record for our internal version control system is Oracle, and it's the most widely used DB by our customers.

  • Smalltalk is simply too hold. [sic] Enterprises sometimes choose the latest and greatest because it helps motivate their staff and not because it is the best tool for the given problem. This is why I believe Ruby on Rails will succeed.

Yeah, C and C++ have just withered out on the vine, haven't they? You know, I suspect that he wouldn't like this argument if someone used it as an explanation for outsourcing, or failing to hire older workers.

  • Smalltalk is slow compared to other first-class languages such as C++ and Java. Developer productivity is great in Smalltalk but developer productivity should always be a second-class concern over runtime performance

If you measure trivial things, sure. If you write a big app in C++, it often ends up slower, because the developers end up writing a GC system (this is one of the big wins Java gave C++ developers - same syntax, but with modern facilities). Performance hasn't been an issue for anyone using it in a long while - and if it is, then Ruby sure isn't an answer (and yet somehow, even though Ruby is very slow, that productivity thing seems to matter.). Go figure.

  • Smalltalk is not open. Have you ever heard of any of the Cincom bloggers championing Smalltalk implementations should all be open source?

We don't live under an OSS license, but all the code is available (the Smalltalk level code is all available, for both commercial and non-commercial, and the VM source is delivered to all customers). How's that source access to Oracle working out? Have you stopped using that, or SQL Server? We aren't under OSS for a simple reason: there's no business model I've seen that would allow us to profitably deliver the product that way.

  • The vendors in the Smalltalk community are greedy and for the most part filled with employees that are idiots. Have you ever witnessed coopetition in the Smalltalk community amongst its major vendors to build marketshare? Maybe they could learn something from the Java community in this regard

The Java community? There's a vendor there who jealously guards the code to prevent any possibility of code forking. Way back in the day, ParcPlace freely licensed Smalltalk for $1. That's actual open-ness, as opposed to what passes for it now. Oh - and the link I didn't reproduce when he called someone an idiot above? That guy isn't a Cincomer, and has never worked for Cincom.

Then there's this:

  • No ability to write simple standalone applications. You can write a small application in C++ and/or Java, copy it onto a USB and give to someone else to run on their computer. You can't really do the same with Smalltalk

Hmm. I'm entering this post from just that sort of tool - heck, I've even passed copies of BottomFeeder around via USB. The list of things that McGovern knows nothing about seems to grow as time goes by.

I'd go on, but it gets tiresome. If McGovern doesn't want to use Smalltalk, that's fine - plenty of other people do, and it's a growing number all the time. Based on my reading of his blog, he's stuck in an unproductive atmosphere, in a shop that can barely deliver working code. I'll make this point: once upon a time, back in the early 90's, that shop was productive - they were using Smalltalk. That stopped, and it looks like the productivity stopped with it.

]]> 3363766964 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIPBServlet?guid=3363766964 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?guid=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 Michael Haupt 2007-08-05T13:39:04-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p><p>Hi,</p> <p>don't you think McGovern's post carries a good deal of satirical content? After all, saying something like<blockquote>No convincing examples of enterprise applications. Pretty much ever person in the Java community is familiar with the J2EE Petstore. What is the equivalent in Smalltalk?</blockquote>or<blockquote>No ability to write simple standalone applications. You can write a small application in C++ and/or Java, copy it onto a USB and give to someone else to run on their computer. You can't really do the same with Smalltalk</blockquote>doesn't really make the one saying it sound like someone who was actually knowing what they were talking about, provided they are serious about what they say.</p> <p>I mean, come on. <em>PetStore</em>?</p> <p>And <em>if</em> McGovern is being serious, then he is obviously also somewhat clueless.</p> <p>Greetings,<br>Michael</p></p> </div> satire alert? blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 <a href="http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/troy/blogView">Troy Brumley</a> 2007-08-05T14:54:57-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Comment by <a href="http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/troy/blogView">Troy Brumley</a></p> <p> <p>While I don't think it's an appropriate system for enterprise development, Squeak has about the most open license I've ever worked with.</p> <p>A more fundamental problem with McGovern's whole thesis is the idea that you have to &quot;win&quot; to be successful or relevant. That just isn't the case in most fields of endeavor. The IT ecosystem is rich and varied, and we all benefit from a diversity of ideas and implementations.</p></p> </div> squeak? blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 Philippe Marschall 2007-08-05T15:14:27-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Squeak is neither OpenSource(tm) nor free software. The only open and free Smalltalk I know of is GST. </p></div> Squeaks openness blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 James Robertson 2007-08-05T15:42:37-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Comment by James Robertson</p> <p> <p>For the people living in &quot;only the GPL is truly free&quot; fantasy world, sure. For the rest of us who live in the real world, Squeak is free and open source.</p> </p> </div> Re: On being a follower blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 she 2007-08-05T15:48:23-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Maybe his reasoning is wrong, given. But the conclusion is still correct.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The fancy bits are with ruby and ruby on rails, whether people like the hype around </p><p>RoR or not isnt a huge concern (the ruby language is what is very nice there)&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Smalltalk doesnt compete with C++ or C or C#, it competes with perl python and&nbsp;</p><p>ruby, and thus must appeal to people in this field. I believe for any given big project,</p><p>lets take a game engine, they will always choose C++ over smalltalk ;)&nbsp;</p> </div> he is right blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 John Dougan 2007-08-05T18:00:18-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Phillippe is half right and it has nothing to do with the GPL. The old Squeak license had a number of encumberances because of the old license that Apple released the original Squeak under and there was no procedure to make sure that the later contributed code was licensed properly.&nbsp; Apple have relicensed the old core system under APSL 2.0 (http://www.squeak.org/SqueakLicense/) and the individual contributions are being relicensed under the MIT license (http://netjam.org/squeak/SqueakDistributionAgreement.pdf).&nbsp; I talked with Craig Latta about it recently and god progress is being made. There are only about 300 methods left that actually matter that also have no clear license. It shouldn&#39;t take much of a cleanroom effort to reimplement them then strip the methods that don&#39;t matter from the core release and then it will be fully Open Source (tm of OSI). </p></div> Openess problem being fixed. blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 Charles Miller 2007-08-05T18:12:52-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Anyone with half a brain could write a decent article pointing out the flaws in Smalltalk, that article seems to skip every single valid point in favour of easily-argued flamebait. I'm half tempted to think that you've been trolled.</p> </div> Flamebait? blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 gwenhwyfaer 2007-08-05T18:37:46-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Surely the assertion that &quot;...developer productivity should always be a second-class concern over runtime performance&quot; was pretty much a great big Jolly Roger hoisted over the whole posting...? Not even the people who hold such a view implicitly dare to defend it openly... </p> </div> blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 Andy Bower 2007-08-06T07:09:46-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>I added this comment to McGoverns post but I wondered whether it might get &quot;delayed in moderation&quot; so I reproduce it here:</p><p><strong>&nbsp;To James McGovern:</strong></p><p>&nbsp;&quot;<em>No ability to write simple standalone applications. You can write a small application in C++ and/or Java, copy it onto a USB and give to someone else to run on their computer. You can&#39;t really do the same with Smalltalk</em>&quot;.</p><p>Sigh. You call members of the Smalltalk community idiots and yet have the gall to come up with unresearched tripe like this.</p><p>Smalltalk has been able to produce standalone applications for years. Download this and copy it onto a &quot;memory stick&quot;. It&#39;s a standalone implementation of the Windows Registry Editor in Dolphin Smalltalk:</p><p><a href="http://www.object-arts.com/downloads/misc/DRegEdit.exe">http://www.object-arts.com/downloads/misc/DRegEdit.exe</a></p><p>If you want a more application then copy this to another USB stick:</p><p><a href="http://www.object-arts.com/downloads/misc/MarkovGameSetup.exe">http://www.object-arts.com/downloads/misc/MarkovGameSetup.exe</a></p><p>And try this for a commercial app:</p><p><a href="http://www.my-blood-pressure.com/">http://www.my-blood-pressure.com/</a></p><p>The only way you&#39;ll be able to tell this is written in Smalltalk is by a close examination of the executable version resource.</p><p>Now who looks like an idiot.</p> </div> Who's the idiot? blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 Michael Haupt 2007-08-06T07:46:11-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p><p>...satire alert.</p> <p>Sometimes, satire is best if done unintentionally.</p> <p>Best,<br>Michael</p></p> </div> like I said... blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 2007-08-06T09:09:05-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Smalltalk is dead... Proof?&nbsp; Just search Monster.com or any internet job website for Smalltalk jobs verses C#, Java, C++, etc.</p><p>&nbsp;Authority? Over 11 years experience in Smalltalk with rapidly diminishing opportunities for employment...</p> </div> Smalltalk is dead blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 2007-08-06T09:39:24-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Smalltalk being dead obviously lured JP Morgan into having Kapital developed and sold to them.</p> </div> blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 Isaac Gouy 2007-08-06T13:12:01-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>anonymous wrote <em>"Smalltalk being dead obviously lured JP Morgan into having Kapital developed and sold to them."</em><br/> iirc I heard about Kapital back in the early '90s and wonder when it was started? </p></div> back in the day blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 Philippe Marschall 2007-08-06T13:45:55-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p><p>James, please learn what OpenSource(tm) and free software means. They have very precise definitions that go beyond "the source is there". You can have the source of Windows too. The FSF of course accepts other licenses than GPL as free.</p> <a href="http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd">http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd</a> <br /> <a href="http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/">http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/</a></p> </div> OpenSource blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=On_being_a_follower&entry=3363766964 Mark Miller 2007-08-07T02:09:08-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Interestingly McGovern&nbsp;links to another article on <a href="http://kw-agiledevelopment.blogspot.com/2007/08/most-it-projects-fail-will-yours_06.html">why most IT projects fail</a>. It&#39;s been this way for years. I remember we were talking about this high rate of project failure in the 90s.&nbsp;I agree that competently implemented iterative methods are a part of the solution, but I think development platforms are an issue that should be considered. In past projects I&#39;ve worked on it&#39;s been difficult to get away from spending a significant amount of time working on plumbing issues, no matter which language/development platform I&#39;ve used. This takes time away from working on what actually needs to get solved: the business problem.</p><p>I think a significant factor in this was the weakness&nbsp;of the languages that were used. They gained almost all of their leverage from APIs, which had a tendency of course&nbsp;to focus on plumbing. I mean, what value could they contribute to a project if this wasn&#39;t the case? The producers of these libraries don&#39;t know what you&#39;re going to be modeling from project to project. They have to focus on issues like accessing a resource, and they had a tendency to make you spend a lot of time thinking about how to access them properly.</p><p>I think what RoR and Seaside/Glorp bring to the table is allowing developers to spend more time thinking about the actual problem, which equals developer productivity. It&#39;s interesting he says &quot;program performance is more important than developer productivity&quot;. With that kind of attitude your developers are always going to be struggling or at least worried about getting their project done on time and within budget. I can understand this emphasis on performance&nbsp;within some domains. If a program is too slow, people won&#39;t use it. The question is are there other ways of speeding it up? If it&#39;s a web app., get faster servers. That&#39;s been a mantra in the Java community for years: speed is just a function of the hardware, not the software.</p><p>Overall what&nbsp;McGovern displays&nbsp;is what&nbsp;I&#39;ve observed in other organizations, and other tech bloggers, which is they see IT systems development as primarily an I.S. function, with those with CS skills in support roles. A lot of IT systems development that I&#39;ve seen in the past is &quot;plug &#39;this&#39; into &#39;that&#39;&quot;, assembling premanufactured components together. There&#39;s not much innovation going on. It seems like this is what McGovern supports. Take what the big manufacturers are selling,&nbsp;and whatever&#39;s popular in the OSS community. Use their integration tools/capabilities to plug them together, and BTW let the engineers deal with each manufacturer&#39;s quirks. For example, Oracle documentation still sucks. For all practical purposes it&#39;s non-existent unless you&#39;re willing to pey mucho training fees to get your people trained on it, or hire expensive consultants to do&nbsp;the work&nbsp;for you. The more enterprising engineers will go out and buy Osborne books at company expense and study them.</p><p>Not to say plugging components together is bad, but if that&#39;s all you&#39;re doing you&#39;re not really innovating. You&#39;re&nbsp;just moving along&nbsp;in the &quot;IT Doesn&#39;t Matter&quot; club, because almost everyone else is using, or has available to them, the exact same IT component set.</p> </div> The wisdom of the plug and play IT culture http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIServlet?guid=3363766964 Irony Alert http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 enterprisey Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:06:04 EDT

Yet another Pot/Kettle thing from the Enterprisey one:

"Folks who blog but still don't understand blogging..."

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]]> 3360837964 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIPBServlet?guid=3360837964 http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?guid=3360837964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 2007-07-02T21:35:11-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>How come you haven&#39;t answered any of the questions he has asked? Are you afraid? </p></div> blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 James Robertson 2007-07-02T22:37:31-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Comment by James Robertson</p> <p> <p>I tend to ignore him, other than periodically highlighting his more idiotic statements.</p> </p> </div> Questions? blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 2007-07-03T08:12:01-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>If you are ignoring him, then why do you always link to him? He always refers to you as president of his fan club which you are proving correct. I do think his questions around Smalltalk and User-Centric Identity do have merit.<br /> </p></div> blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 James Robertson 2007-07-03T10:01:32-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Comment by James Robertson</p> <p> <p>You may have noticed that one of the things I like to do is highlight things I think are stupid. Maybe it's a personality flaw, but it's what I do.</p> </p> </div> You may have noticed... blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 2007-07-03T21:34:39-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Do you think it is stupid that Smalltalk is the only language to not support user-centric identity (e.g. Cardspace or OpenID)? Do you think it is stupid that Smalltalk cannot integrate with enterprise security products?<br /> </p></div> blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 James Robertson 2007-07-03T22:07:49-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>Comment by James Robertson</p> <p> <p>Hmm. Smalltalk &quot;cannot integrate&quot;? Cincom Smalltalk has a standards compliant WS* stack, and according to this, you can <a href="http://cardspace.netfx3.com/files/folders/samples-july-ctp/entry5269.aspx">integrate that way</a> quite nicely. We don't implement those specs directly (we've had zero requests for that), it's something we could do in a straightforwatrd fashion - if there were any demand for it.</p> </p> </div> Integration... blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 blogView?showComments=true&printTitle=Irony_Alert&entry=3360837964 2007-07-04T10:08:44-04:00 <div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <p>OpenID has absolutely nothing to do with WS-I. Don&#39;t show your own irony... </p></div> http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/servlet/CommentAPIServlet?guid=3360837964