New Blog – SIMPL/PHP
January 20, 2012
Hello again,
I have started a new blog at http://simplphp.wordpress.com.
SIMPL/PHP is a complete “Smalltalk-like” online environment for developing Internet applications.
And I will keep this blog alive as well for discussing Smalltalk…
January 20, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Smalltalk-like? What happened to your Smalltalk implementation?
January 21, 2012 at 5:35 pm
PHP is the deployment platform of choice for my clients.
SIMPL/PHP is a commercial tool for web applications.
There seems to be very little interest in Smalltalk today…
January 22, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Strange, that Smalltalk got little interest. Your Quicksilver Smalltalk site got featured in the CodeProject daily newsletter several months ago so I am wondering if you received negative reactions?
January 23, 2012 at 1:19 pm
No, I didn’t receive any negative reactions.
I think that the interest in Smalltalk as a language is quite limited, at least for the newest generation of programmers.
What people like the most about Smalltalk are the tools (browsers, inspectors, refactoring, etc), the large class libraries, and the interactive way that applications can be developed.
But similar tools are now available for other languages like Python, Ruby, and Clojure.
So, I think it is mainly a question that the “ecological niche” that Smalltalk occupied has been usurped by newer languages. And all of the languages that I listed above have a much richer syntax for manipulating data structures.
Recently, I wrote some applications using Ruby and I found that Ruby is basically Smalltalk with a different (and IMHO, better) syntax.
Ruby and Ruby-on-Rails are some of the most active projects on GitHub.
So, I think that people who would have been attracted to Smalltalk are using Ruby instead.
January 26, 2012 at 8:09 am
Somehow sad, but I think you are right in your analysis and your chances of commercial success are much higher by offering these technologies based on the most widespread web-development languages / environments.
Wish you much success in your endeavours.
January 28, 2012 at 3:34 pm
Thanks for the kind wishes…
– Peter