Marketing Smalltalk
I noticed that James Robertson is reading Eric Sink. I've known Eric for a long time. He took an operating systems course from me 15 years or so ago and has been making guest lectures in my senior project course for three or four years. It might not be obvious, but he lives in Champaign-Urbana, like I do.
Eric is on a kick talking about marketing for software people. Java taught me the importance of good marketing. Eric makes snide comments about Java marketing, but Sun actually did a good job persuading big companies to adapt Java. Unfortunately, there aren't any big companies pushing Smalltalk, so it has to be done by smaller companies and users. Eric runs a small company, and he is talking to small companies.
Eric said:
Don't try to create a "better" product. That strategy is too vague. Instead, try to create a product which is better for a specific group of people with specific problems that are not being solved very well by others. That specific group of people will perceive your product as the best.
Programming languages are general tools, and can be used for all kinds of problems. Therefore, it is hard to apply this advice to Smalltalk. When Smalltalk was first commercialized, it was used to build unusual user interfaces, such as ones that used windows and mice. As windows and mice got old hat, Smalltalkers discovered tht it was good for client/server computing. ParkPlace and IBM were so focused on client/server computing that they missed the start of the internet. Now Cincom has refocused on the internet, and the product is good, but few people who do not already know and love Smalltalk find it compelling? How can any Smalltalk, including VisualWorks, be best for some specific group of people with specific problems?
What is the elevator pitch for Smalltalk?
A group of six good Smalltalkers can do in two years what twenty good Java programmers could do in three.
Is this convincing? Defensible? We think it is true, but why hasn't the world been convinced? Or is this not the important issue?
Comments
Marketing Smalltalk
[Mel Riffe] June 11, 2004 16:29:23.379
Ralph, I left my comment here: http://melriffe.blog-city.com/read/648631.htm.
It appears the trackback url is not working correctly or I'm just not sure how to use it.
Anyways, I love reading your blog - keep up the good work.
[Ralph Johnson] June 11, 2004 20:37:28.862
Peter van Rooijen wrote some ideas for marketing Smalltalk some time ago.
Its about time!
[Jon] June 20, 2004 1:25:05.158
Showing off the power of Smalltalk is always fun.
where I work:
[Johannes Friestad] August 10, 2004 19:45:14.704
"Programming languages are general tools, and can be applied to all kinds of problems. Therefore, it is hard to apply this advice to Smalltalk."
I disagree. Obviously, programming languages are general tools, so any programming language can be used for any programming task: It is presumably possible to write device drivers in Prolog or a content management system in Perl. Still, this does not tend to happen. Many programmers have experience with more than one language, and many agree that there are tasks for which some languages are better (more appropriate?) than others.
The advice is simply to identify a single type of tasks for which Smalltalk is clearly better, and do the elevator pitch for that type of task and a single benefit (halves development time!) only.
Look at Java: It started out as an 'applets' language, largely failed as a 'desktop application' language, but found a niche in 'server-side webapps', from which it went on to become an 'enterprise computing' language. They are now trying to make inroads into the 'mobile computing' segment, time will show if they succeed.
You identify yourself several segments where smalltalk was 'best' in the past, like 'bleeding-edge user interfaces' with windows and mice. As time moves on, programming languages do not change all that much, but their perceived niches do. This is not all that much of a problem, as long as you remember to update the marketing slogans every once in a while.
So why hasn't the world been convinced? Among other reasons, perhaps because you are (implicitly) telling the world that 'Smalltalk is always better for everything', which they, sensibly enough, simply refuse to believe.
Note that all times US East Coast time
[poster art, posters] August 18, 2004 9:49:21.670
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