VisualAge for Mac OS X ?

[Martin]

The market situtation in the os market has changed recently and so my question is if there are any plans to support mac os x in the near/far future?

[Eric Clayberg]

The market situation in the os market has changed recently and so my question is if there are any plans to support mac os x in the near/far future?

The market situation may have change a bit, but not significantly, so the answer is still "no".

Here are some stats from the Java side of our business (which we can track very accurately)...

• Total number of registered users: >200,000
• % Using Windows (All Versions): 92%
• % Using Linux (All Versions): 6%
• % Using OSX (All Versions): 2%
• % Using all other OSes: <1%

You can argue that doesn't reflect what we would see on the Smalltalk side, but I would say that it is close enough and those numbers are still 5-10X lower than what we would need in order to justify doing it speculatively. I am not aware of even a single one of our large Smalltalk customers with any interest in seeing VAST on OSX (or, more importantly, willing to fund the likely $250-500K effort required to make that happen). In fact, while we have seen a number of individuals express interest in this if it were available, I don't recall even one person willing to actually buy a single new license of VAST for OSX (let alone the 50..75..100 new licenses needed to actually pay for it).

Now, if there is anyone out there interested in a very challenging project who would like to step up and build this for us (under NDA, we would supply you with full source to everything VAST-related that you would need), let me know. We would even be willing to pay you to do this...out of the proceeds of new VAST OSX licenses of course. So...if you think I am wrong in my analysis and think this would be easy money, then by all means let me know. Trust me, I would love to be proven wrong in this case!

[marten]

Looking at several sources available in the Internet these numbers seem to be pretty reasonable values - Windows at around 90%, Linux at around 1% and Mac at around 5%.

And I would think, that a Mac port must be of very high quality - to be accepted by the users and the programmers.

On the other hand the Smalltalk community is pretty MacOSX oriented - perhaps persons who are using Smalltalk are strange enough to use MacOSX also ))

On the other hand - when really looking for more platforms one perhaps should admit, that with VA one has choosen the wrong technology - because even on Linux a VA desktop solution is not really a user-oriented solution. There are other Smalltalks (or other languages) available better suited for this problem.

Therefore before getting an OSX solution it might be more useful to get a much, much nicer platform independent solution for Linux and Windows using a new GUI toolkit ....

And even the GUI for Windows needs updating .....

Marten

• Total number of registered users: >200,000
• % Using Windows (All Versions): 92%
• % Using Linux (All Versions): 6%
• % Using OSX (All Versions): 2%
• % Using all other OSes: <1%

[jtuchel]

Marten,

I guess you are right: VA ST first needs a new, more flexible and modernized base for its GUI stuff, and when this is going to be attacked, Instantiations should have an eye on portability.

Numbers up and down, Instantiations primarily serves large corporate customers and that's currently not a domain of Macs. Large businesses might not be happy if Instantiations concentrated on a mac port which does not help them in their projects.

OTOH, there is the question of growth / Smalltalk newcomers and their preferred platform. I'd say Macs play an important role in that area. For somebody having to pay bills, however, hunting after these is a bit risky. I personally would love to have a Smalltalk environment that allows me to build a real native Mac application and I know no Smalltalk IDE that would help with this (who knows what happens to Ambrai?).

So I guess we are in agreement if we wish for

1. Improvements to Common and Extended Widgets (e.g. backport stuff from Eclispe SWT)
2. Modernization to the GUI elements available (we still have no sorting list containers, and lists and trees still look OS/2ish) and addition of new GUI widgets (a lot has happened since Windows 95)
3. Modernization of the GUI builders, both Composition Editor and WindowBuilder. Best would be if both are merged into one tool, starting by making CE generate pure Smalltalk Code and adding Connections and friends to WB.
4. Always keeping an eye on portability to Linux and Mac OS X, even if both are not primary targets for most existing customers

You can read a few more thoughts on this stuff in a blog post of mine: http://joachimtuchel.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/the-state-of-gui-frameworks-in-todays-smalltalk-ides/

The Mac is surely a beautiful platform and I think being the first native Mac OS X Smalltalk that needs no handstands and prayers to bind to Cocoa for GUIs (no need for NIBs from Interface Builder etc.) would surely be a great sales argument for the respective audience, but for now, it's not Instantiations' main concern.

We (unfortunately) must keep in mind that part of the growth for Macs comes from the fact that thousands of small businesses start working in XCode in order to provide apps for iPhone and iPad, and as long as a Mac Smalltalk is not running on these devices, even these small businesses are NOT potential Smalltalkers

So, yes, I'd like to see a Mac VAST, but first I'd like to see some urgent homework made, and I'd wish for Instantiations to keep an eye on the Mac as an option here, starting by looking into how SWT (which is a child of CommonWidgets) handles portability and works on Cocoa, and adapting as much as possible from that effort to renovate CW.
Instantiations has a lot of knowledge in Eclipse/SWT that can be of help here.

just an opinion,

Joachim

[marten]

Marten,

I guess you are right: VA ST first needs a new, more flexible and modernized base for its GUI stuff, and when this is going to be attacked, Instantiations should have an eye on portability.

I'm collecting questions for the VASmalltalk day in Stuttgart, Germany, in the beginning of June ...... ))

Marten

[jtuchel]

Marten wrote:

I'm collecting questions for the VASmalltalk day in Stuttgart, Germany, in the beginning of June ...... ))

... for which, btw, you can register for free here: http://vastforum2010.eventbrite.com