New Year Speech by the Chairman of the BSUG vzw, David Grietens

Dear BSUG member, 

Let me wish you all the best for the new year and I hope that having 3 O's into this years wonderful number 2000 will finally boost Object Oriented thinking in software development. Why OO should boost is not something I have to explain to a Smalltalk developer. We all like to build systems that model the real world as we have it pictured in our minds. Real Smalltalkers are like children. They like to create maquettes of reality and play with it. In this world where reality is often too cruel to live with, that is certainly not something to be ashamed of.

The rise of the Java movement certainly continued in 1999, but it is clear that this movement is not driven by idealists wanting to model the real world. Maybe Java people will be richer at the end of the trip, but we Smalltalkers will have had so much more fun, and more importantly, our customers will be more satisfied too.

1999 has been a moving year for the Smalltalk landscape. Cincom decided to buy VisualWorks from ObjectShare. Every Smalltalker was concerned about the destiny of the mother of all Smalltalk environments, but after first fears had been talked about, most of us were very happy that Cincom had made this decision and almost everybody was convinced that they could rescue VisualWorks and ensure its continued evolution into the 21st century. Cincom proved its good intentions immediately by announcing a new academic program utilizing Cincom Smalltalk. This program, named "Cincom Object Education" includes a complimentary copy of Cincom Smalltalk software offerings to all educational institutions that provide on-site graduate courses to full-time students.

By coincidence (was it ?) the news about Cincom and VisualWorks got spread during the 7th ESUG User Conference in Ghent (Belgium), a joint organization effort of BSUG, ESUG and the University Of Ghent (RUG). This UC was a real success. Let me point out that this edition attracted 15% more people than its previous edition in Italy. I think that this again proved that Smalltalk is far from dead and that is especially true for our country since 25% of the attendees were from Belgium. We (BSUG) were very glad to invite all the 70 attendees to our BSUG small talk drink.

Besides the organization of the ESUG UC, BSUG organized 4 other events since the new board took over mid 1998. In March 1998 I decided to start an official organization that would promote Smalltalk and professionalism in using it. I looked for Smalltalk enthusiasts that wanted to pull the cart just like me and found 4 wonderful people. Since then we have done an enormous amount of work in our spare time. Let me just enumerate: we performed all necessary administration for the foundation of the BSUG organization (quite a lot), we organized 5 BSUG events with well-known speakers such as Dave Thomas and Kent Beck, searched for sponsors (and found them), built a website and had several board meetings to discuss our plans, ideas and ways to help Smalltalk cultivate.

It is also with great pride that we can announce you today, our new logo that was born after numerous discussions and improvements over the last couple of months. Why this new logo? Firstly, because we want to prove we are serious about our organization. Secondly, because we want the outside world to know us as a community of software development professionals helping each other to become even better developers and object(ive) thinkers.

I want to conclude with a testimony of one of our members about using Smalltalk. I think he is a model example of the new self-assured software developer who makes his choices based on his experience. This kind of software engineer will prove to be invaluable in the 21st century, a time in which the shortage of software specialists will have to be dealt with. It is still my belief, despite what most people think, that this shortage is not solved with more programmers. Instead the solution comes with more professionalism in software development, meaning a better way of doing things. It is not the development that is eating resources, but it is the fixing of errors and wrong management decisions that is using more people than would normally be necessary. Software is a product of intellect. Many companies tend to forget that and think they can substitute intelligence with putting more hardly educated and inexperienced people on the job.

I got Laurent's testimony over e-mail 2 months ago, after I had asked him informally what he thought about VisualAge for Smalltalk 5.0, the new version of IBM's Smalltalk environment that was released in the summer of 1999 and contains several enhancements to its previous version, including improved Java Interoperability by means of a RMI mapping wizard and the VisualAge Smalltalk Ultra Light Client.

Laurent replied: 
"Concerning VisualAge for Smalltalk, I use it now since the beginning of October. In 2 months time, working about two days a week, I have integrated an ActiveX component and written the whole interface of the word processing part of my application, a French and English grammar checker. I have also integrated the engine of the checker that was written in C. I can now use it from within Smalltalk. And all of this works very well! In fact, I spent more time in searching the documentation than I did with programming. The result looks like a normal Windows application. I have friends that always smile when I tell them that I program in Smalltalk (they are C and C++ only programmers). But the result surprised them a lot!
So for me, VisualAge for Smalltalk is wonderful. It allows me to conciliate my deep wish to use Smalltalk and to develop the applications that I have to write for my customers without encountering any problems or bottlenecks."
So far for Laurent's testimony.

To conclude, it is with deep regrets that I have to announce you that Filip Gilbert, our BSUG PR man, has decided to leave us as a board member. Cincom has offered him a new job to become the international representative for Cincom's Smalltalk line of products. This means that Filip now has his office in an airplane and he felt there was not enough time left to fulfill his duty as a BSUG board member. Of course we do understand his concerns and we (BSUG) would like to thank him for everything he did for us and wish him all the strength and enthusiasm to prove the world that Smalltalk still has the best and most productive development environments on the market today.

And finally I would like to stress that this BSUG organization is here for you. We were a little bit disappointed about the traffic on our mailing list. So, if you have questions to ask or interesting stories to tell this community, please do not hesitate to show us your enthusiasm. Also, if you have suggestions for improving BSUG, let us know.

Let me assure you that we will continue to promote Smalltalk with equal strength by organizing events and helping you in any way we can. I hope you have enjoyed this 16th BSUG meeting and I also hope to see you again at one of our next events. If you need more information on the events planned for 2000, consult our website. The next appointment is scheduled for April 4th . We will welcome you that day at the Arenberg Castle in Leuven where we will show real life Smalltalk successes in the financial world.

I would like to thank our sponsors Cincom, hIghQ, IBM, MediaGeniX and Roots without whom all of this would not have been possible.

David Grietens (david@highq.be; tel: 016/35.38.30)
Chairman BSUG vzw

BSUG vzw
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