🚀 go-pugleaf

In <316D09A4.7A92@possibility.com>, Todd Hoff <tmh@possibility.com> writes:
>Java is in addition a good language with near universal support. 
>That's a lot to overcome with tepid arguments of productivity gains.

Tepid arguments of productivity gains?  Sorry, on most projects I've
worked on, speed to market is the premier business interest, and 
maintenance ends up being over 90% of all development efforts.
Not having done more than reading Java code (I doubt many people 
have yet), I couldn't gauge its ability to compete in this arena, but 
we have found that Smalltalk development is 5 to 10 times more 
productive than C++ development.  In real business, this is where the 
$ is, not in the purchase cost of the product.

While Java is free, what do you get?  At this point, a bunch of command
line tools, unless you buy one of the new suites or C++ environments that 
contain it, such as Symantec's Cafe ($?) or C++ 7.2 ($400) or Borland C++ 5.0 
($500), or Roaster for the Mac ($400).  Not free, but for those of us who 
have moved on to IDE's,  it's at least not a step backward.

Also, Smalltalk is not that expensive if you look around.  IBM currently
has a competitive upgrade promotion for owners of Delphi, PowerBuilder,
and a few other tools, for $399 list for IBM Smalltalk and $699 list for
VisualAge.  VisualAge also does *not* carry runtime fees.  The Smalltalk
Store lists the 16-bit version of Smalltalk/V for Windows at $179.  There 
are also free versions of Smalltalk available.

Jeff L.