Re: Smalltalk

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

From: CD (cdy(NNNNN)_at_dicehome.com(NNNN))
Date: 01/04/05 

Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 16:53:08 -0800

Moe,
You'd think Bill would have jumped right on that wouldn't you? What's the
deal Bill?

Frank,
I'm with you on what you are saying. I've been bitching at Cincom for years
to fix the GUI. They've implemented some nice stuff, but unfortunately, it is
the GUI that gives the first impression and that kills things from the start.
I've been working closely with an engineer there and from what I gather,
Cincom is squeezing everything out of these guys that they can. Although I do
not have a count, I do not think that the number of real developers there are
many.

I'm starting to teach myself C# now, as a hedge in the job market, but I
find it hard to concentrate on the application logic without some of the
tools and features of Smalltalk. I've gotten so used to just placing a halt
in an empty method and coding "on the fly" while running. The whole build and
run thing is hard to go back to. Also, I can't remember the last time I lost
code because of an exception, or even a crash of a machine. The
transactioning of code in VW blows people away when I show them. I've gotten
very used to "dumping" my image in order to back out of changes and just
reapplying the change log up to a specific point. I'n not familiar with
recent releases of Visual SourceSafe, but I doubt that it approaches the
functionality of the Store repository. I could go on and on about stuff like
the TimeProfiler and Refactory Browser.

It's a real shame to see a language like this just standing on the sideline.

Chip

"Moe Green" wrote:

>
> Bill Gates on smalltalk:
>
> From the back of an old Digitalk Smalltalk/V PM manual, 1990:
> "This is the right way to develop applications for OS/2 PM. OS/2 PM
> is a tremendously rich environment, which makes it inherently complex.
> Smalltalk/V PM removes that complexity and lets you concentrate on
> writing great programs. Smalltalk/V PM is the kind of tool that will
> make OS/2 the successor to MS/DOS".
>
> http://www.quotesandsayings.com/gbillgates.htm
>
>
> Frank Lesser [LSW] wrote:
> > Chip,
> >
> > The problem which Smalltalk has to fight with is exactly the GUI and the lack of integration with the Windows-OS.
> > I agree with you that Smalltalk is extremely productive - I also used it for more than 20 years now - just that every change is
> > immediatley visible the powerful debugging features
> > all that I don't want to miss - But when you have to interface with other components - to integrate with modern GUI you start to
> > loose all the advantages.
> > We had to create our own implementation to overcome the GUI and other problems.
> >
> > What Smalltalk had from the very beginning ( e.g. change code while debugging is right now introduced in a very limited way compared
> > to Smalltalk as Edit-and-Continue in .NET language environments )
> > For Windows Desktop Development I would regard to today only Dolphin and Smalltalk-MT as possible environments. Both implementations
> > are from small firms. VW is still using emulated widgets - Pollock and Chagall ( Native Widgets ) are in development - Cincom is not
> > a small firm. Smallscript as a Smalltalk superset with integration into Visual-Studio will be the .NET Smalltalk ( but with the loss
> > of everything is an object feature ). VMX Smalltalk is a nice Interpreter on top of the CLR ( loss of performance )
> > .
> > With appearance of .NET the Situation of Smalltalk became even worse. Because Smalltalk is based on its own Virtual-Machine and JIT
> > which is incompatible with
> > .NET it is almost impossible to transport Smalltalk to .NET CLR without loosing performance and/or its basic features.
> > For our ( Win32 based ) Smalltalk we have choosen to create an interface to.NET. ( Smalltalk primitives can invoke .NET methods ) -
> > Also our pure .NET implementation does not integrate with the .NET object model and it uses its own JIT technology.
> >
> > I guess that I need not to be afraid - Microsoft's CLR and Smalltalk are so incompatible today that MS will not take hands on that
> > language.
> > However they will take more and more features ( e.g. Object-Browser / Refactoring ) which have their origins in Smalltalk and add
> > them to their development environments.
> >
> > Frank
> >
> >
>

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