From: Julian Fitzell <julian@...4.com>
Date: 2003-11-20T16:47:34+09:00
Subject: Re: "stereotyping"

Clifford Heath wrote:
> Michael campbell wrote:
> 
>> How do the smalltalkers manage?
> 
> 
> Couldn't say for sure, but I've never known a smalltalker who
> worked as part of a team on a project of extended duration...
> I'm sure that says something.

Wow!  That's quite the troll! - I think I'll bite.

As a smalltalker who has been working on the same project in a team at 
work for 9 months and who has been contributing to open source projects 
as part of rather large distributed teams for several years, I can 
assure you that the fact that you've never met any smalltalkers who have 
done so reflects more on who you've met than on who is out there.

I quick scan of http://www.whysmalltalk.com/production/index.htm gives 
you some idea of some of the many large scale applications deployed 
using Smalltalk.  These applications are used by companies like Chrysler 
and FedEx as well as many large banks, insurance companies, etc.  I 
think we can safely assume that these applications are developed by more 
than a single individual and over an extended duration.

To touch on the broader issue, I don't need a static type to know what a 
method expects.  My method parameter might be called aWidget, for 
example which tells me it is expecting something that behaves like a 
widget.  Then if I need more clarification, I can look at the code 
(which is probably no more than 5-10 lines - smalltalk methods are 
usually that short) and see what methods are called on it.  Then I know 
it's expecting an object that responds to those methods.  If for some 
reason, it still wasn't clear, I could easily put in a comment 
explaining what was expected but I can't think of a time recently where 
that has been necessary.

I can't say I've ever run into cases in Smalltalk where I can't 
understand what a method expects because I don't have static typing. 
And I'd laugh at anyone who claims Java code (for example) is easier to 
read than Smalltalk - I don't need a Javadoc equivalent in Smalltalk to 
understand the code.

Julian