Club Squeak

A discussion on the Squeak list reminded me of the saying “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it” and thus prompted me to squeeze out another bit of this saga …

Back in 1992, before Mosaic, before Java(formerly known as Oak) was demoed to Sun management as a language for networked consumer devices, David Taylor examined the state of object-oriented programming in a book entitled

Object-Oriented Information Systems: Planning and Implementation

This book is available used for under a dollar and provides considerable evidence for my view that the vacuum created by the collective choices of the Smalltalk community opened the primary avenue for the widespread adoption of Java. Taylor conducted an informal survey that listed case studies of actual projects and concluded:

• There is no way to tell how many of the C++ buyers are simply upgrading to new C features as opposed to using the language for object-oriented programming
• The early adopters of object technology have been primarily in the scientific and engineering markets where C is already an established standard.
• C has virtually no presence in corporate MIS departments
• Although there is some question about how gracefully COBOL can be extended into the object arena, Object COBOL already enjoys a large and highly receptive market in Fortune 500 companies, who are keenly interested in protecting their vast investment in COBOL programs and programmers.
• … found far more Fortune 500 companies working with Smalltalk that C++ for office applications

these findings jibe well with my own personal experiences as a project leader, contract programmer, consultant and mentor on major Smalltalk projects as well as those as an engineer and database administrator.

In the early 90’s, the corporate landscape was littered with the rotting corpses of failed C++ projects aimed at what we now call enterprise applications. Smalltalk had replaced C++ as the language of choice for new projects and as a more effective means of transitioning COBOL applications and programmers. Early in it’s growth, Java wasn’t replacing Smalltalk but rather filling a vacuum created by the Smalltalk community. Moreover, it was only able to fill this vacuum riding the Smalltalk-based VisualAge IDE that Eclipse was born from. This is happening with Croquet and will continue to happen with Smalltalk-based innovations until and unless the community learns the lessons of its own history. I am optimistic that it will though it will likely be painful for most.