[geeks] smalltalk is everywhere

Greg A. Woods woods at weird.com
Wed Nov 6 23:59:32 CST 2002


[ On Wednesday, November 6, 2002 at 22:25:27 (-0500), Dave McGuire wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: [geeks] Misuse of Java
>
>    Wow...someone actually USING smalltalk.  I've been programming 
> professionally for about eighteen years, and nonprofessionally for 
> about five before that...and I've NEVER heard of anyone using smalltalk.
> 
>    Ever.

Smalltalk in production use in a tremendous number of extremely
significant places, in commercial, scientific, industrial, etc.  FedEX
run some large Smalltalk systems, including their main customer service
application and their delivery tracking sytem.  Toyota Canada run
production lines with it.  I know of a local steel plant that uses it
from the shop floor right back to the accounting office.  The Ontario
Teachers Pension Plan administers their fund with it.  Several banks
around the world use Smalltalk in many applications (right up to teller
terminals in ScotiaBank IIUC).  Insurance companies love it for all
kinds of applications (American Nuclear Insurars, Geico Direct, John
Deere Ins. etc.).  Chrysler does their payroll using Smalltalk.  The
State of Wisconsin Dept. of Revenue keeps track of delinquent taxes with
a Smalltalk application, and a similar application is used by the
Swedish Tax Administration.  Texas Instruments even uses Smalltalk to
control wafer manufacturing.

etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.  even more are detailed here:

	http://www.whysmalltalk.com/production/production_smalltalk.htm

The head software architect for a local software company that uses
Smalltalk for most of their core applications these days gave a talk
recently to our local unix geeks group and he suggested that Smalltalk
is under most people's radar because it's been out there and trusted for
so long that its users just take it for granted.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;            <g.a.woods at ieee.org>;           <woods at robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods at planix.com>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods at weird.com>



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