Howard Stearns, in a comment on Cees' post about Smalltalk and Java:

About manager’s preference for Java: Don’t understimate non-technical factors! There’s no question in my mind that Lisp is strictly more expressive than Smalltalk. And in the project I work on (Croquet), some of the key people are probably more proficient at Lisp than Smalltalk. And yet there are other factors…. For managers in “the enterprise”, the key factors are risk/predictability. Suppose some project can be done in two weeks with 2 really good Lisp/Squeak cowboys, but in in 20 weeks with 10 completely commodity programmers. And suppose that all projects, regardless of duration, always turn out to be +/- 8 weeks of estimate (often due to non-technical factors), and 50% of all project fail no matter what you do (pick your own favorite percentage). Now, if you play poker, which bet gives you the best odds of making your goal within 25% of your estimate?

Well, let's look at the item that many managers look at - cost over the course of a year. Which will cost you more: Those two "cowboys", or the 10 "commodity" developers? Heck, let's say you find yourself 2 really good people, and pay them each $175k per year, as opposed to paying each of the 10 commodity guys $80k?

The only question is whether you buy the productivity numbers. Why not try a pilot project with 1-3 Smalltalkers, and set them a task that you figure would take your commodity staff 6 months to do?

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, java