Lambda the Ultimate

In amongst the wrangling about inappropriate benchmarking you can get some idea of the Strongtalk implementation techniques that have been incorporated into commercial Smalltalks:

Re: Will StrongTalk revitalize Smalltalk? Eliot Miranda

Java Hot Spot VM

When programming in Smalltalk (Dolphin or Squeak) I pretty much live in the debugger, fleshing out my classes as I go along. In the past this has been enough to sway my decision towards using a Smalltalk system rather than another language I prefer like Lisp, Dylan or Goo.

It'll be interesting to follow the uptake of Smallscript which is a superset of Smalltalk (adding Multimethods amongst other things) but with a scripting focus. Less emphasis on the powerful development environment (that's my take anyway).

I think that the benefits of smalltalk are a combination of the language's extremely simple but powerful approach to objects and the development system. It took me a long time to realize that the development system could make system design a lot simpler, simply because I can make dozens of stub classes and flesh them out bit by bit. Of course, I can do that in any language, but I'd have to maintain dozens of files, which would quickly become a pain. I'm sure I have a lot more discoveries along this line still awaiting me.

One thing I find fascinating about smalltalk is the fact that it feels like I've entered an alternate programming universe. For a long time I thought this universe was just bizarre, but now I'm starting to think that maybe it's better than what I'm used to. It's kind of an "everything I know is wrong" epiphany.

As for SmallScript, it loses big from my perspective on two counts:

1) It loses the simple smalltalk syntax, which IMO is one of the things the smalltalk designers really got right.

2) It's proprietary and closed-source. I'm sorry, but I will not use a closed-source language if decent alternatives exist.

As for smalltalk vs. lisp, I find them both enjoyable. I think that some applications map more readily to object-oriented paradigms while others map more readily to functional ones. You use the right tool for the job.

Dolphin Smalltalk was my first use of a Smalltalk system for serious programming years later and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. Not having to deal with header files, implementation files, compilation dependancies, etc was great! And being able to browse 'implementors of', 'senders of', etc. To my C++ programmer mind that seemed near impossible.

The (thankfully few) times I forgot to save my image, or had a crash, were a bit of a problem though. Dolphin and Squeak both (And I'm sure other Smalltalks do too) have the means of recovering code though.

With all these fun programming languages around to play with, how the heck does anyone manage to get anything actually done? I spend most of my time either fooling around with a new language or wrestling with the decision on what language to use! :-)

Not having to deal with header files, implementation files, compilation dependancies, etc was great!

I mean, source code in files. How quaint. How 70's

(And I'm sure other Smalltalks do too) have the means of recovering code though
OTI's ENVY/Developer is a fine-grained (method level), and extremely rich, code repository. It takes Smalltalk productivity to another level - fearless-programming. Hopefully the Eclipse Stellation project will provide the next step.

it feels like I've entered an alternate programming universe
A universe in which you can spend your time thinking about the problems you're trying to solve - play-doh for building software.
There is a downside - the interactivity and power can be addictive, and sometimes folk start doing cool powerful stuff instead of simple needed stuff (ooops project failure).

The latest VisualWorks Smalltalk release is free for non-commercial use. Naturally it's portable across wins, unices, macs. I recommend that you check it out.

Apologies Ehud, it's always been difficult to separate Smalltalk the programming language from Smalltalk the software platform.

That's part of the charm of Smalltalk isn't it?

Yes. The unity of language and platform is delightful.

For me, the charm of Smalltalk the language is mostly due to it's extreme uniformity - very few special cases to trip you up.

Other aspects of the language - for example dynamic typing - are only workable because the tools let you check method implementors, senders, references quickly while writing code. So many of the productivity benefits come from the interplay between language and refined tools.

Is that a yes?

They can, they chose not to.

Try one of these instead:

• VisualWorks is a cross-platform Smalltalk with emulated GUI on all platforms (same as Java Swing, but arguably done better)

• IBM Visual Age Smalltalk is cross-platform but uses native widgets when it can (same as Eclipse SWT)

• Dolphin Smalltalk is Windows only, native GUI.

• Smalltalk MT takes you down to the Windows API calls.

For further Information about Smalltalk.

And to prove your point, VisualWorks ships with cross-platform emulated look and feel for MacOS 8, Motif, Win95, Win98. I never came across end-users who prefered the Smalltalk-80 laf to the platform laf they were familiar with.