

Why Aren't People Using Smalltalk? - horrido
https://medium.com/@richardeng/why-aren-t-people-using-smalltalk-80de31b6e3f4

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T-A
I looked (again) at Smalltalk maybe 5 years ago, and concluded that it didn't
offer enough over more recent and more familiar OO languages to warrant a
switch. So I guess my answer is that it introduced nice ideas, then everybody
else stole them, so you no longer need Smalltalk to use them.

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vezzy-fnord
As a result of growing interest in functional programming, there is a large
blanket hatred of OO emerging, particularly from newbies who see the two
paradigms as intrinsically opposed, and who have acquired bad tastes from the
standard polymorphism/encapsulation/inheritance languages that most people
know as OO.

Smalltalk gets swept under the rug as well in the process.

~~~
horrido
Exactly! As mentioned in the article, Alan Kay's vision of OOP was corrupted
into the rubbish we see today in C++, Java, Scala, etc. Today's conventional
OOP is nothing more than an extension to Abstract Data Types...useful, but not
nearly as powerful as Smalltalk's "true" OOP
([https://medium.com/@richardeng/getting-the-
message-667d77ff7...](https://medium.com/@richardeng/getting-the-
message-667d77ff78d)).

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zaitcev
The only appropriate answer to the IDE part is this:

JEREMY CLARKSON: You mention that you rent a garage.

JAMES MAY: Yes.

JEREMY CLARKSON: How far away from your house?

JAMES MAY: I don't know. Seven miles?

JEREMY CLARKSON: You rent a garage seven miles from your house! How do you get
there?

JAMES MAY: On... on my folding bicycle, obviously.

JEREMY CLARKSON: You are mad! Clinically insane!

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kjs3
I've always suspected that at the point Smalltalk needed to shine to get a
generation of coders on board, the ridiculous cost of an industrial strength
Smalltalk dev environment ran most of them off. Smalltalk never recovered.

~~~
horrido
Exactly right! Smalltalk never recovered because of its PR problem. Smalltalk
has been free (or inexpensive) for over 15 years now.

