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| Bob Nemec 2006-05-19, 8:08 am |
| Yesterday the Toronto Smalltalk User Group had a workshop on Seaside, led by
Yanni Chiu. It was a nice change from the conventional presentation.
We talked about using the workshop format to bootstrap the building of a
community supported Smalltalk news site. Using www.smalltalk-central.com as
an initial starting point may be a way to get things up quickly. James
Robertson will be talking to TSUG June 15. It will be a good time to review
the web site progress.
We had a rare sighting at last night's meeting: a couple of Smalltalk
newbies. One of them, Chris, was very willing to talk about his
frustrations in getting into Smalltalk, which he's been looking at for only
a few w s. He's a webmaster with an interest in Seaside. In his opinion,
the Smalltalk community presents a significant barrier to entry by coming
across as arrogant and aloof. It was difficult defending some of his
criticisms; in many ways, he was right. I had thought those days were
behind us.
He made some very good points. Basically, we don't provide the baby steps
needed to learn our environment. There are virtually no easy to find
introduction materials on the web for people poking around with Smalltalk
for the first time. The fact that Smalltalk was able to do things 15 years
ago that some languages struggle with today is irrelevant to him. He wants
to learn, not be preached to.
So what do we do about it?
First of all, we need to better publicise the introduction information that
is out there, like David Shaffer's Seaside tutorial at
http://www.shaffer-consulting.com/david/Seaside/ . I suspect there is a lot
more, but that it's hard to find. Once we get the STIC web sites cleaned
up, finding & linking to these nuggets of information will be a priority.
Secondly, we need to provide more sample applications. Learning Seaside is
much easier to do when you can follow a working example. I'd like to see
that for every dialect: small applications that can be used to learn
Smalltalk, and a specific dialect. That may be a good way to get more user
group meetings: small versions of Camp Smalltalk, writing demo applications.
It's something I'll encourage the Toronto group to consider.
Finally, we need to watch the attitude. We can come across as
condescending; we know there is a better way to build apps, and they just
don't get it. What's the point of being right if we're ignored? I think of
it as communicating our message better. Yes, we know there is a better way,
so let's make an effort to educate, respectfully. People have spent a
career learning a language and tools. Let's not suggest to them that they've
been wasting their time.
What will STIC do next?
- fix the web site (we're still struggling with registration
issues)
- elect a treasurer
- add web based membership payment
- start a membership drive
- work on our marketing
- plan & publicise next year's Smalltalk Solutions
BTW: I posted this on my STIC Man blog, but I suspect that is does not get
read much ;-)
Bob Nemec
Executive Director
Smalltalk Industry Council
www.stic.org
| |
| Thomas Koschate 2006-05-19, 7:05 pm |
| Bob Nemec wrote:
> BTW: I posted this on my STIC Man blog, but I suspect that is does not get
> read much ;-)
And, of course, Bob's much too modest to provide the URL for blog:
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/user...icBlog/blogView
Tom
| |
| Cesar Rabak 2006-05-20, 7:04 pm |
| Bob Nemec escreveu:
[snipped]
>
> We had a rare sighting at last night's meeting: a couple of Smalltalk
> newbies.
:-)
> One of them, Chris, was very willing to talk about his
> frustrations in getting into Smalltalk, which he's been looking at for only
> a few ws. He's a webmaster with an interest in Seaside. In his opinion,
> the Smalltalk community presents a significant barrier to entry by coming
> across as arrogant and aloof. It was difficult defending some of his
> criticisms; in many ways, he was right. I had thought those days were
> behind us.
>
> He made some very good points. Basically, we don't provide the baby steps
> needed to learn our environment. There are virtually no easy to find
> introduction materials on the web for people poking around with Smalltalk
> for the first time.
I would like to add to this two other aspects:
a) material available is mostly outdated - newbies are already
struggling with the language, their environment to do guessing games on
how an older picture of a browse or another tool relates to its current
operating envionment.
b) a lot of sites that supposedly have links (or 'resources') to this
kind of material has lots of broken links -- this leads to (I admit in a
haste and wrong) that Smalltalk is no longer taken care of.
> The fact that Smalltalk was able to do things 15 years
> ago that some languages struggle with today is irrelevant to him. He wants
> to learn, not be preached to.
Yes. The importance of this cannot be overemphazised.
I could write a post perhaps twice as big as yours only with examples :-)
>
> So what do we do about it?
>
> First of all, we need to better publicise the introduction information that
> is out there, like David Shaffer's Seaside tutorial at
> http://www.shaffer-consulting.com/david/Seaside/ . I suspect there is a lot
> more, but that it's hard to find. Once we get the STIC web sites cleaned
> up, finding & linking to these nuggets of information will be a priority.
>
IMHO it is necessary to have not only for Seaside but for the plain
vanila Smalltalk as well.
[snipped]
> Finally, we need to watch the attitude. We can come across as
> condescending; we know there is a better way to build apps, and they just
> don't get it. What's the point of being right if we're ignored? I think of
> it as communicating our message better. Yes, we know there is a better way,
> so let's make an effort to educate, respectfully. People have spent a
> career learning a language and tools. Let's not suggest to them that they've
> been wasting their time.
Well, as you this as 'finally' I'll put a thirdly:
We have to get into the areas where the money, attention and
opportunities are.
IMO the area now in this consolidation of the ERP and like markets is
their Services Oriented plattforms (Netweaver [SAP] and Fusion [Oracle],
for exampleš).
We have to be able to put Smalltalk developed services and/or connect to
these platforms to make apps that talk to these systems which are here
to stay.
HTH
--
Cesar Rabak
[1] There are others, but I feel these as priorities
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