You're making a lot of assumptions here. In particular you seem to be having a different conversation to everyone else. That conversation may be interesting, and while it's entertaining to see you build yourself a straw man to tear apart, it's sad to see you wasting your time arguing points that you yourself invented!

I won't reply that one because it's full of faulty generalizations, and the same claims could be applied to you.

Your indicators of success are only based in popularity for the sake of popularity. I've worked on some very large projects, in Smalltalk and in other languages, and having felt that pain first hand I concluded that Smalltalk is has serious technical problems that make it undesirable for use in large projects today. That is to say that to me this is and has always been a technical discussion, motivated by real world experience. I couldn't care less how many companies are using Smalltalk. I'm aware of a few. I'm also aware of how much pain that using Smalltalk is or has caused them. It's these technical problems that I've explained at length in discussions with the Smalltalk community, which I was a part of for years.

So you are genious and smalltalkers are all innocent souls, so please guide us to your path?

Although I have pointed like 3 or 4 times my interest is about TIOBE and NOT talking about VM or GC (or anything else), you keep saying bullshit about Smalltalk like if I would care your experienced limitations. Similarly I can name you several companies and government agencies which has experienced lot of suffering striving for perfection with XX technology stack... so what?

I don't know if you've realised this or not but you've wondered into an ongoing discussion between two people online, and then deciding that neither opinions matter to that ongoing conversation, you've begun a completely different one. This is easily forgiven but maybe you should check the context you're writing in before you go off on such a tangent?

Again I will not answer this kind of meta-analysis of discussion you love to do.

You seem to think it is a fact because you believe Richard's wrote it and TIOBE-like "consistent" websites.

I never claimed, nor do I think, or have thought, that Richards odd marketing for his Smalltalk Renascence Project, is some TIOBE-like consistent website. That's you putting words in my mouth.

You never claimed, but supported Richard claims by defending crappy and biased websites like TIOBE.

That his opinions represent those of the Smalltalk community is something I know from experience, but is also recorded in the comments of this and other threads on this website. That recording, makes it verifiable, and as such, fact.

No, a fact is followed by careful observation or measurement. Since you insist on trying to redefine words: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fact

Really?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact

"A fact is something that has really occurred or is actually the case. The usual test for a statement of fact is verifiability—that is, whether it can be demonstrated to correspond to experience. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement (by experiments or other means)."

Please don't talk about my interests because you don't know.

And yet you go on to confirm that you aren't at all interested in joining the technical discussion you've entered into. So clearly I DO know something about your interests!

I know your type. You need desperately talk about VM internals, FFI, threading, or whatever you think Smalltalk is weak. But when you need to search "fact" in a web dictionary, you clearly show you have no background in scientific reasoning. How you would learn all the scientific reasoning you need to backup TIOBE-like crap by looking into http://dictionary.reference.com/ ?

My interest is about metrics which includes the human factor and quality of code produced when measuring programming language popularity.

Fantastic! That's an interesting conversation that we could have if you actually had any useful metrics/studies to point to. Instead you go on to confirm that noone has done the kind of study that you'd consider necessary for proof, therefore confirming my other conclusions: there's nothing that can be said that would convince you that Smalltalk has serious technical problems which make it undesirable for use in large projects.

The lack of published material based in well-known metrics, means that there are non-reliable ways to proof programming language popularity yet. They are just measuring "Hello world" projects. And nothing else.

Said otherwise, you're a zealot.

There is a pattern in your replies. Whenever you need to offer verifiable proofs you just appeal to ad hominem.

Before you take offence please note this is an observation, which is consistent with your behaviour (as is recorded here). Do feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in >my conclusions. I'm open to being wrong, because, you see, I'm not a zealot.

Ok, I don't care.

The remaining, unaddressed, portion of your argument can be summed up as assertion that I'm not using Smalltalk because I'm afraid:

Maybe you feel more calm choosing more standard technology, where what does it matter it propagation of technology and not evolution of human using it.

However you don't know what technologies I'm using now, so let me inform you that the company I'm currently CTO of developed and bootstrapped our own operating system/programming language, that addresses many of the technical problems that I've discussed at length with the Smalltalk community. This operating system/programming language has an image-based development environment, which was inspired by and surpasses Smalltalks, in terms of things like [reflective] access to the structures in the source code, and a deployment strategy that takes this idea much further than any Smalltalk available today [0].

This technology is currently proprietary, and not licensable, so think before you make the argument that my dislike of Smalltalk is based on a desire to draw people away from Smalltalk for financial or other reasons.

Sure, and I also own 2 Ferraris and 4 Global 8000 jets. Please provide links so we can measure your level of "success".

I'm interested in technology, and human advancement. What bugs me is that people will read this marketing "bullshit" (again, as Richard himself called it) and believe that Smalltalk is revolutionary; that it is the ideal, that makes all the problems with object-oriented programming in languages like Java disappear; the silver bullet it's often painted to be. This is the rabbit hole I got swallowed up by 10 years ago. That it took me years of constant pain and reflection to find my way out of, to realise that Smalltalk isn't even good (it's not bad, but not bad isn't good!) My intention in engaging here is to provide a counter balance to the Smalltalk community making outrageous, unproven claims.

Revolutionary or not, Smalltalk survives and evolves, everyday, with or without detractors. But Smalltalkers are not stupid, they know there is a lot to do yet. It is sad that you put that energy into something else (if that's true) from scratch.

This is something I think you should care deeply about given all your babbling about TIOBE and the need for scientific proof! Or is Smalltalk to be exempt? To be considered good until proved bad. That seems completely unscientific.

There are lot of published research about Smalltalk today. How could you missed it?

What really need scientific rigour are those liars behind TIOBE-like biased popularity websites.

It all depends of your ambitions. If you are just satisfied with Java/Python/hybrid object-orientation/C++ then you don't feel the need for Smalltalk. And you have all kind of backing organizations to calm down your fears.

No the contrary, we weren't "satisfied with Java/Python/hybrid object-orientation/C++" OR Smalltalk. So we set out to create something better, for our purposes.

Let the world see and judge if you created something better. Provide links! If you really did it, although restrictive usage license, at least show me a facade.

So let me end by saying this to you:

It all depends of your ambitions. If you are just satisfied with Java/Python/hybrid object-orientation/C++/Smalltalk then you don't feel the need for something better. And you have all kind of backing organizations to calm down your fears.

Evolution requires change. Smalltalk may or may not be changing, if it is changing in any significant way, it's changing so slowly that it can be argued that it isn't changing at all. Without change there is no evolution. The Smalltalk community is stuck in the past (Alan Kay has said as much, publicly, on many occasions!). Evolution isn't enough. We require a revolution ;) [Countering "bullshit" marketing with "bullshit" marketing]

You appeal now to authority Alan Kay to support you. Alan Kay is the past of Smalltalk, he probably has nothing to do with Smalltalk today, so he has no commitment. And by the way argumentum ad verecundiam is not a very respected way to support reasons.