April 19th 2001.	Smalltalk Solutions 2001

Remember the old Smalltalk Solutions in NY?

But in 2000 sorry no Smalltalk Solutions, sad. But wait isn't there something else. Why yes there is Camp Smalltalk, and SqueakEnd'00, and since that was so good it was decided to have another and double the fun at Camp Smalltalk 2.0. , then of course Camp at OOPSLA 2000. But Camp is tough to explain and tougher to sell to people who wear the suits.

So a few brave folks resurrected Smalltalk Solutions for 2001 a real pinstripe convention, did I bring a tie I wonder? Here tonight I'm going to start the story.

As night settles over the mid USA, what is that sound we hear? It's the noise from *hundreds* of Smalltalkers settling into a short week of fun at Smalltalk Solutions 2001 in Chicago.

A great idea, a place to come to learn new things, trade stories, or in some cases teach tutorials. I catch a few over-exuberant Smalltalkers casting paper airplane off the 10 story high balcony at the Hyatt, discussing plans about a contest, and how to keep some other, er more interesting individuals far far away from the pool area this week. For that little gem you must visit the report from Camp Smalltalk in San Diego, or have been there to hear the real story.

Of course this isn't all fun and games, a few hours later we retire to a bar to let one of us smoke his cigar, yes yes he said this isn't California, and the rest of us to discuss what happens with a 1.5GB VisualWorks image and it's issue of stressing the Garbage Collector. Beyond this the discovery that most of us were not from the USA was realized and tales of custom mishaps abounded. More importantly pictures of kids and babies were trade and issues discussed, much better than discussion on a mailing list. If you could not attend this year we understand, but next year you must come. And yes Eliot was telling stories, something about watering a lawn,. See you tell an American who ask about your wonderful english lawn, that you start with some seed, and some tender loving care, then do that for 500 years, then you have a lawn, is there a problem here?

A game was afoot, what was IBM going to announce? Could it be open sourcing VisualAge? Could it be giving out Envy for free, or perhaps just pushing VisualAge for Linux out the door? Your guess was as good as mine, perhaps in a day or so we would know the truth. Smalltalk alive and well, and having fun, hear hear...

Many hours passed, and the few from the east coast, or even further east begged to return to the hotel, and the rest from the west coast took pity. I had a story to write, tomorrow the conference would open, Camp Smalltalk would start, and I had to attend a workshop or two, so bed is in order

So another adventure begins, please check back each night at 1AM PST for more of the story

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday

Pictures!

http://www.mojowire.com/pictures/index.php3?directory=SmalltalkSolutions2001

Notes from the masses:
wallingf@cs.uni.edu (Eugene Wallingford) writes:
RE SketchPad thesis, If you go to: http://libraries.mit.edu/docs/theses.html you will find a link that lets you buy copies. Printable PDFs are $29; bound copies are $59. The link in the tuesday report links to a page at MIT that allows you to view JPEGS of the document for free, slow, but free.