This was a talk by Jason Ayers about how we, as developers, should evaluate new technologies without getting caught up in the hype. Mr. Ayers is the Managing Director of Cincom, which is a vendor of a version of Smalltalk, so he was obviously going to use this talk from his viewpoint.
He pushed that idea that we can change our implementation language if we want to because there are now so many out there in various states of maturity. The best reason for a change would be in gaining a competitive edge, with the proviso that the programmer should enjoy using the language.
He demonstrated a technique called a radar diagram that could be used to compare the different features of several languages together an he was obviously keen in pushing smalltalk as a viable alternative.
At the end of the session I asked him why he thought Java took off suddenly at the end of the nineties, and he said that it was because one vendor of smalltalk turned down the chance to make an embedded version of smalltalk for Netscape - i.e. Smalltalk turned down the chance to reach a huge audience.
I have heard that story before, anyone remember how DOS got onto the IBM PC? Because the maker of CP/M turned them down first. Aah, so this is how things happen.
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