objtch@extro.ucc.su.oz.au (Peter Goodall) (12/21/90)
Dear folks, ParcPlace recently asked if I thought that a 'Team Tools' environment was neccessary for team development under their ObjectWorks system. I replied that I thought it was extremely neccessary, and was probably one of the things holding up acceptance of Smalltalk by a wider market. They were suggesting Dave Thomas's ENVY system as a solution. Unfortunately I don't have direct experience of that system. I am familiar with the ORWELL system from the paper in OOPSLA '88 proceedings. This system seemed to have many of the features required. I would like to provoke some discussion alon the following lines: What does the Smalltalk community require of configuration management tools? Should these be bundled with the Smalltalk release?. An advantage of this would be transportability of configurations. I don't think that ParcPlace has taken advantage of Smalltalk-80's initial leadership in programming environments. Other systems (Sabre C, C++) seem to b making rapid advances, while Smalltalk-80 has largely stood still. Improvements in compiler technology are all very well, but we do really use ST-80 and Smalltalk/V* for their productivity. We have big avantages in the persistant state of the SMalltalk image, and the ability to upgrade a system while its running. We now need serious development support. The time for writing single programmer computer science experiments is over. I need to be able to work safely with a team of 15-20 over a period of 5 years, and still end up with a tidy system. Also I wonder why ParcPlace doesn't use this newsgroup for encouraging discussion on the improvement of the development environment. I would like to see that group of silent readers out there giving their opinions as a contribution to the Smalltalk community. ---------------------------- Peter Goodall Smalltalk Systems Consultant ObjecTech P/L 162 Burns Bay Rd, LANE COVE , NSW, AUSTRALIA objtch@extro.ucc.su.oz.au
warner@scubed.com (Ken Warner) (12/21/90)
In article <objtch.661727011@extro> objtch@extro.ucc.su.oz.au (Peter Goodall) writes: > ParcPlace recently asked if I thought that a 'Team Tools' environment >was neccessary for team development under their ObjectWorks system. >I replied that I thought it was extremely neccessary, and was probably >one of the things holding up acceptance of Smalltalk by a wider market. [deleted the rest] Instantiations in Portland, Or. USA has a nice tool that works in this area. It's called AppOrg and lets one group classes together into Packages that can be manipulated as one thing, i.e. filed in or out in such a way as to retain all the information necessary to recreate an application. I think I've got that right. It's been a while since I worked with it. I'm a "one programmer -- one project" kind of guy. I did like AppOrg though and I think it would perhaps be useful to you. Instantiation can be emailed at: xinstant@applelink.apple.com Tell'em Ken sent you. If you can't get through to them email or call me at: warner@scubed.scubed.com (619) 450-2580 >I would like to provoke some discussion alon the following lines: > Should these be bundled with the Smalltalk release?. An advantage of > this would be transportability of configurations. Bundled? Idunno. Available? Yes! >development support. The time for writing single programmer computer >science experiments is over. I need to be able to work safely with a team >of 15-20 over a period of 5 years, and still end up with a tidy system. I agree whole heartedly! I've had a lot of trouble just porting work I've done from version 2.3 to 2.5 ... it shouldn't be this way. >Also I wonder why ParcPlace doesn't use this newsgroup for encouraging >discussion on the improvement of the development environment. I would >like to see that group of silent readers out there giving their opinions >as a contribution to the Smalltalk community. [picture me zipping my mouth shut] Ken Warner
Paul.Regenhardt@p0.f500.n5000.z200.METRONET.ORG (Paul Regenhardt) (12/30/90)
I have been very discouraged by both Digitalk and ParcPlace's response to Smalltalk users on the issues they bring up. Everytime I talk to either of them they are always very pleasent, but nothing seems to happen. Still, nothing I've seen beats Smalltalk. Any set of Tools for multiple programmers would be great, although I am somewhat leary because there are already a number of tools out that for one reason or another always seem to fall short of being useful. To those who have sent me Netmail: My apologies, I haven't had time to figure out how to use the Netmail system from this node yet, but I have your messages and will respond as soon as possible. I spoke with Brad Cox the other day about Producer (his Smalltalk-80 to Objective C converter). He let me know that the goal of allowing people to work in Smalltalk and then convert to Objective C is nice, but with his company it currently has a priority of zero. The thought is that once you learn to program in Objective C, why would you want to program in anything else? From what I've seen of Objective C so far, any type of converter program would have to be extremely smart in order to convert the code automatically. This is because Objective C is not as "rich" as the Smalltalk-80 (or Smalltalk/V286). --- ZMailQ 1.12 (QuickBBS) * Origin: Jaguar's NetWorking Labs, (303)377-2371 HST/v.32 (200:5000/500.0) -- ============================================================================= Paul Regenhardt - via MetroNet node 200:5000/500 The Bohemia BBS System, Boulder Colorado (303)449-8946 UUCP: Paul.Regenhardt@p0.f500.n5000.z200.METRONET.ORG or : ...!boulder!bohemia.METRONET.ORG!500.0!Paul.Regenhardt =============================================================================