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PromoteSqueak

A Challenge:
So, do you think you're smart? Got a brain? Prove it! This page is for ideas to promote Squeak. Some people would call this marketing, but the idea of marketing free stuff might confuse some folks. Can you think of something to add? C'mon. I dare you. Strategies or tactics, anything at all. Go ahead. Make my day! (Pleeeeaase??)

Get Squeak included in Linux Distributions
Contact all the major Linux distributors, tell them what Squeak is and ask them to include it in their distributions (check first if they don't have it already). Make a RPM package (http://www.rpm.org/) for easy installation, this includes a short and a longer description.

SuSE Linux 6.2 doesn't include Squeak

Joy and glory: Stefan Rieken has (finally) made the RPM packages for Linux, and they are included in the Independence Linux distribution. See my personal page on this Swiki (= Stefan Rieken).

Student Contests.
How about a student contest. They seem to be a great way to harness short term brain power. For example, a contest to produce the best documentation in Squeak, of a Squeak subsystem. The Jitter Interpreter, MorphicInterface, either Event System, the collections family, the debugging/profiling facilities, the explain facility, the memory management/gc system, the number system... All those and more could use docs, and adding the best few entries to the official release would be very friendly to newbies. Also winning carries it's own reward in this case: your signature on the image. Some MarkGuzdial Computer Science courses use Squeak. What a great source for contestants.

New Ports.
How about SqueakPorts to under-supported but noteworthy platforms with many sharp users: PortWishList. --JeremiahFass

Documentation.
What a radical concept: a programming system could spread faster if people could learn how to use it. LiterateSqueaking would aid Squeak greatly! --JeremiahFass
See the Squeak Cookbook.

Squeak Demo Disk.
QNX makes a Posix compliant Real Time OS. They have a fascinating, web-based marketing concept: "Take the 1.44 M Web Challenge." You can download an OS kernel, TCP/IP stack, webserver, browser, text editor, all on one 1.44 Meg floppy, then run it off the floppy and RAM. No hard disk needed. It is very easy to set up, very fast, and most impressive: http://www.qnx.com/iat/index.html

Something like this might work with Squeak. Another Squeaker suggested this too. Who? --JeremiahFass

There is a bootable SqueakOS based on the OSKit. Essentially a minimal Linux system with a small image. Now with an 800x600 SVGA support. See: http://members.xoom.com/squeakos --David Mitchell

Squeak Suite
If Squeak had more applications, more people would use it and be interested in it. Maybe it needs a software suite: Word processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Image manager (drawing, photo editing), Communications, WWW browser, etc. The GEOS operating system (http://www.geoworks.com) started on Intel x86 systems, but now is portable. It is object oriented, and assembly language coded. A very interesting, inexpensive suite exists for it: http://www.newdealinc.com

Squeak Killer App
Create/promote just one application that makes people interested in Squeak. For some, this might be the Swiki. Make it as easy as possible to install and configure, even for people with no Smalltalk knowledge.

A Book about Squeak including a cd-rom
I think the best way to promote squeak is to write a book about it. Other freeware stuff like the famous Pov-Ray (http://www.povray.org) also did this.

We need a book that totally explains Smalltalk and concepts behind Squeak, from Morphic down to VM hacking. This can only be done with the help of every Squeak-Programmer. We should start the book as Swiki, so everybody can extend it. Every author of a special Squeak feature should also explain this feature as a topic of the book. The book should include a CD-ROM with tested Squeak-Release for all platforms.

The book should cover all aspects of Squeak. The more people writing, the better it is. A starting point can be to assemble all Squeak docs in one book, like I began with my Smalltalk Online books. What do you think about it? Please email Torsten Bergmann.


I agree

I feel that the Swiki book is a great idea for us to spread the word. It will not just be a boring, dry, uninteresting text that condenses the principals of squeak into a 21 day class (more like minutes for the smalltalk syntax!) but...how to say this...a snapshot of the community. (sp?) A picture of the community frozen in time, with all of its elements in there. There is so much to learn about squeak, and so much to do, with is consensus idea projects and completely liberal open source. Considering how small squeak is, we could fit every platform distribution, plus the important parts of the archives, plus some of the swiki servers. It'd rule. And we could get a place like CheapBytes or even prime time Freeware... I don't know the URL, it might still be on the MkLinux Pages Apple Computer, Inc. had up.

Just my two cents.
email me at intern_boy_chris@yahoo.com




Linux Journal magazine allows people to contribute articles (as a journal should!). Each month they usually feature something 'technology' related to Linux (e.g Databases, GUI, Networking), and they had a Python insert not too long ago. So, why not have a Smalltalk feature in one of their upcoming magazines ? Either that, or write a good squeak article and submit it.
Might as well ride the Linux hype to promote Squeak. Just my 0.2

Kevin Liang
kevin@vcn.bc.ca

Hi Kevin,
This is a good idea - I did something similar and am starting a series in the Linux Gazette that will complement my original article (written in VWNC). Since then, I've started getting into Squeak and plan on using Squeak in the series. The first article is due this coming Nov.

Jason Steffler jagwar@magma.ca