[Chyzwar]

> And which of those supposed explanations would also suggest that Python should be unpopular?

Python was free and open source, had one of the best interop with other tools and excellent open ecosystem. Python now have better type safety via mypy than Smalltalk ever had.

> And which of those supposed explanation would also suggest that JS should be unpopular

JS is destined to be popular, it has monopoly in browser. It is the only reason why it is popular.

> Think again.

I worked on Smalltalk project for a year and I know how limited and closed it is. Smalltalk had combination of all these factors that made people choose C/C++/C#/Java for performance, JS for browser, Perl/Python/PHP for scripting and Visual Basic for GUIs. There were hardly any places where Smalltalk was a better choice.

[igouy]

You talk as if 2020's Java and Python and… was available in 1990. Those language implementations were a lot worse back then.

I worked on Smalltalk projects for a decade.

Free as-in-beer wins popularity contests.