From: "Garrett Johnson" <garry@erols.com>
Subject: Re: [ALL] Smalltalk Solutions '99 .. someone like to give a report?
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 00:41:27 -0500

It was my first trip to this as well and I agree it was small compared with
the "Rock Concerts" that Microsoft tends to throw but I thought the
technical content was keeping both newbies and experts very interested.  We
had 3 people at the conference since we could not have covered enough
material with one person and two would have stretched it.

I've only been involved with Smalltalk for a couple of years but it seemed
as if there is a lot more Smalltalk going on than the show's attendance
demonstrated.  References to Smalltalk development efforts happening in
"stealth mode" were amusing and seemed to agree with the lack of publicized
information I had found in the press.  However many of the people I spoke to
were working on fairly large development efforts that were underway or just
beginning so I think the old adage about "rumors of my death being greatly
exaggerated" seem to apply.  IBM's web site even has a statement to the
effect that IBM is in Smalltalk for the "long haul".  More references to
that effect and similar statements from ObjectShare are on the STIC website.

It all seems strange to me since after dealing with C, and C++ on UNIX and
then NT, and various attempts at rapid development environments like VB and
PowerBuilder for the last 15 years (well OK, 18 years -- and as long as you
don't count college and high school :-)), Smalltalk has been a very
enjoyable experience.  Many development environments I have dealt with in
the past seem to all be attempts at replicating what Smalltalk has had all
along.  However I wonder if Smalltalk had caused the "love-in" that Java
seems to have caused if it would still be the object of desire for those in
this community (of which I now count myself a new member) or would it have
been forever damaged due to those infamous "market forces"?

Oh well, back to the show...

There seems to be a fair amount of interest around all the new features in
IBM's VAST 4.5 like Server Smalltalk, WebConnect, Ultra Light Client, and
the mainframe port.  I was at most of those sessions and they were well
attended with tons of questions.  VAST 5.0 is due later this year with
"rumors" about better tools for easier integration with RMI and IIOP based
systems.  These are technologies that will require some rework of existing
code to turn a fat client into a server capable of handling multiple users
but we prototyped that in our lab and our fears about performance were
unfounded (at least for the application we used).

ObjectShare announced and released version 5i of their product.  Synchrony
Systems was there with a new version of Smalltalk Migration Technology(SMT).
New books coming on Mastering ENVY/Developer and a series on XP (eXtreme
Programming).

It was a good week from my perspective.  If all goes well I'll be back next
year since I know we'll have a lot more Smalltalk code in our product by
then!

Garry Johnson
Microbank Software, Inc.
http://www.microbank.com



Dennis Smith wrote in message <36f3f084.21106914@client.news.psi.ca>...
>For those of us who did not make it this year?
>
>=================================================================
>Dennis Smith, MaSc  --  Cherniak Software Development Corporation
>400-10 Commerce Valley Dr E, Thornhill ON Canada  L3T 7N7
>Phone: 905.771.7011      FAX: 905.771.6288
>quenton@cherniak.on.ca   http://www.cherniak.on.ca