Smalltalk didn't die. It's growth was killed. The dream of taking over the world was killed. But there are still people making their living with Smalltalk. It is hard to find good Smalltalk jobs, but they exist.
I've always thought the main problem with Smalltalk was lack of marketing, in the broader sense. In 1995, when Java came out, there was no free Smalltalk that schools could use. I paid something like $3K per year for a site license for VisuaalWorks so I could teach with it, and few schools would do that. It was hard to find Smalltalk programmers, and their salaries were very high, and few schools taught it so companies would train their Cobol programmers in Smalltalk only to find them leaving for higher salaries. Smalltalk did not seem very well supported at all, and when the main Smalltalk company (ParcPlace) seemed to be taken over by dysfunctional pointy-haired managers, companies started to look for other alternatives. Java was their main choice, even though it was five years before it was good enough to build the same systems that they had been building in Smalltalk for a long time. Things like non-C-like syntax and difficulty of calling C libraries were a part of the problem, but a minor part. I think the bigger issues were business ones. As usual. Technical people think that technology wins or loses because of technical reasons, but they are usually wrong. if you want your technology to win, study marketing and business. I've been programming in Smalltalk since 1985. I remember 1995 as if it were yesterday. -Ralph Johnson _______________________________________________ Beginners mailing list Beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners