Smalltalk's Image

Smalltalk's Image Problem by Giles Bowkett

You'd expect a language like Smalltalk to attract developers in droves; in reality, Smalltalk's much less popular than clunkier, less productive languages and environments. The explosive Ruby on Rails growth curve demonstrates the power of reaching out to developers. How can the Smalltalk community achieve similar results?

Bio: Giles Bowkett's screencast on Seaside and Rails focused a ton of attention on Seaside, and developers regularly thank him at conferences for introducing them to Smalltalk. He's a Ruby developer who's only ever worked with Smalltalk at home for fun, yet people frequently refer to him as a Smalltalk expert. His experience demonstrates how invisible real Smalltalk experts are in the broader developer community, and indicates how that can change.