Headless Pharo
Pharo is getting better at headless running:
the last two days we worked hard with Marcus to incorporate this new stuff into image, and now we're done. All images past #13021 now have non interactive ui manager (NonInteractiveUIManager). We fixed almost all broken tests caused by introducing it (there are only few minor ones left).
The open source solutions are getting more and more reasonable - the commercial vendors are not going to be able to sit back and relax...
Comments
Re: Headless Pharo
[Todd Edwin King] January 28, 2011 12:12:56.115
I had commented in a previous post of yours about how I believe the Smalltalk vendors need to move towards a "value added" business model based on "free" (or at least very cheap) basic platform. Another commenter (apparently a VM developer) took exception to my statement, believing that I meant the VM/basic tools were of no value. That is certainly not what I meant - my current development work is very important to the success of the software systems that it supports, but no customer is going to pay a dime to directly purchase what I produce. Smalltalk VM's are in a similar situation IMO - a VM will have to be really special (e.g., makes coffee for you) for customers to see inherent value in it - VM are becoming too much of a commodity for that to happen.
There is a growing interest (thirst?) for Smalltalk, and I believe that if the vendors aren't willing to drop their old notions of $$$$$ and a high barrier of entry to basic offerings, the Smalltalk community will make them irrelevant.
But if one could offer a set of valuable tools and services on top of an easily obtainable/license-able basic VM/tools platform, then the expense of developing VMs would be covered. And having a platform that others can enhance (commercial and community) would only enhance its perceived value in the long run.