Alain Rastoul-2 wrote > "If we can't convince these organizations that they'll be much more > productive using Smalltalk over Java, and save tons of money /in the long > run/, then how can we ever advance our agenda to the rest of the world??" > > I do not see productivity as very important. It is just an (eventually) > good feature. > Productivity, and cost are the most flawed indicators in software > development and this is the argument I hate the most (I may be a bit > rude about that because I have to maintain some old legacy code and we > had quite some bugs last years). > Costs in the middle and long run are clearly related to code quality and > to bugs, not to productivity. > And sometimes, the cost of bugs is terrible when you think about how > many people are involved in the chain and what has to be done to solve > customer problems and revert the results of bugs. .. Awful.
It's true, the long-term costs of maintenance generally outweigh the initial cost of development. But this is true regardless of which language you use. It does not imply that companies do not care to write their applications quickly and economically. Smalltalk may offer benefits during maintenance and bug-fixing, too. But that's a lot harder to quantify and therefore harder to sell. It's much easier to make – and demonstrate! – the productivity argument. > "Strategically, it shows Smalltalk's versatility and that > it's not just a one-trick pony. Limiting ourselves to just desktop (or > Seaside) applications is rather short-sighted." > > I do not understand how Smalltalk will be more versatile by using a jvm > ? doing like others ? > > IMHO innovation is related to change, this implies not following the > main path somewhere, > and some risks too. By versatile, I mean that Smalltalk usage is applicable in many other domains, including JVM, .NET, mobile, etc. I'm all for innovation, but we cannot ignore current needs. For better or worse, the JVM is the de facto enterprise standard platform. If we can't play in their space, then that just /looks/ bad. After all, Java is our biggest competitor. > To end, I found your question a good revealer about one's expectations > about pharo, very interesting :). > > > > -- > Regards, > > Alain -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/InfoWorld-on-Redline-Smalltalk-tp4799678p4800277.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
