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Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet)
Keith Fieldhouse takes
a look at Smalltalk and Squeak on O'ReillyNet. "Smalltalk, an
influential language with deep roots in software development practice,
offers an outstanding opportunity for stretching your mind and exercising
your development muscles. The only drawback is that once you try it, you
may never go back. This article will help you get started."
(Log in to post comments)
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 22, 2006 16:35 UTC (Fri) by dambacher (subscriber, #1710) [Link] Yes ! Smalltalk is a wonderful language.Easy to learn and with graphical abilities and modern programming philosophy.BUT THAT WAS IN THE '80
Unfortunately today, this is true mostly only for commecial products.
Either they lack a working graphical environment or they have more than one of them but badly documented and integrated.
Don't get me wrong. I would choose smalltalk before C++ or Java, I even implemented my own graphical environment for gnu smalltalk, but for the ease of use and programming and modern technologies (internet) now for me personally it's python, others will choose perl, php (mentioned just to NOT striking the match for the flamewar that may follow)
The fast followers won.
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 22, 2006 16:53 UTC (Fri) by ringerc (subscriber, #3071) [Link] It's a great teaching language, since it's so easy to get straight to doing interesting graphical things, yet it's not a toy like Logo and similar. My university used it in one of its first year courses, and I think that was a very good choice. Smalltalk is very "pure OO" and while that can actually be less than ideal at times, it makes it a good language for acquiring the concepts.
Similarly, the same university's choice to use Haskell is very useful because functional concepts are useful and powerful no matter what language you're using. (Too bad their CS lecturers and other teaching staff are as terrible as their broad course design is good).
I don't see the appeal of Smalltalk for "real work" ... but I'm sure there are niche areas where it's the perfect language, and it's also a great language to learn and to teach with. Let's hope that we never reach the point where a language has to be a "big commercial language" for people to learn it ... because a modern programmer can still significantly extend their skills and ideas with languages like:
- Lisp
I was also sorely tempted to put SQL in that list, given how many programmers use SQL databases only through metres of object-relational mappings and "Enterprise frameworks".
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 22, 2006 20:01 UTC (Fri) by andrel (subscriber, #5166) [Link] Logo is a LISP dialect with fewer parens, not a toy. Check out some of the cool stuff Brian Harvey has done with Logo.
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 22, 2006 17:54 UTC (Fri) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link] Definitely. I learned Object-Oriented programming with Smalltalk. Much cleaner than C++ or Java. Way back, I even bought Smalltalk 80 for Windows 3, for the student price (about 5% of the normal retail price, if I remember right.)Given the choice, I would use Smalltalk over C++ or Java any day. But as with so much out of Xerox PARC, Xerox management squandered the potential of Smalltalk.
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 22, 2006 23:26 UTC (Fri) by mduregon (subscriber, #3792) [Link] Squeak (www.squeak.org) *is* a freely-available implementation that matches smalltalk80 and is multi-platform (unix, windows and mac)
There are lots of commercial vendors too:
- Windows
- Mac
RSS feeds:
BLOGs:
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 23, 2006 11:19 UTC (Sat) by csawtell (subscriber, #986) [Link] You forgot SmalltalkXhttp://www.exept.de/exept/english/Smalltalk/frame_uebersi...
The work of a real genius.
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 22, 2006 17:32 UTC (Fri) by kurtb149 (guest, #15765) [Link] Smalltalk is truly different. There is no text format of the language. It *has* to be constructed with a gui and persisted in a database. I was on a project that used it once; I left the company before it got completed, but I heard it was cancelled. To me, Smalltalk always gave me the feeling that I was trying to do calculus in RPN.
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 22, 2006 18:00 UTC (Fri) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link] At least for Smalltalk 80, that's not true. The code was in a flat text file.
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 23, 2006 7:57 UTC (Sat) by dambacher (subscriber, #1710) [Link] In fact, it is rpn. And - no wonder - in terms of speed and simplicity, a rpn calculator outperformes the normal one - no brackets and no operator order needed.Its just that we are not used to it ... Same problem like with smalltalk - not in every situation the better design wins.
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 25, 2006 10:06 UTC (Mon) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] In fact, it is rpn.Is it? My impression is it is something halfway. Functions (methods?) can have operands on the left and right sides, if I recall correctly from some reading many years back trying to grok it (finding it confusing, I gave up). In a true RPN language (like FORTH or PostScript), operators always after all operands come.
Smalltalk for Everyone Else (O'ReillyNet) Posted Sep 22, 2006 23:07 UTC (Fri) by litosteel (guest, #33304) [Link] I'm using Ruby now and i think it's a good replacement, at least with the syntax. About the image thing, there's no substitute in any language i knewed before Smalltalk.I have used GNU-Smalltalk and the GTK integration as a GUI Toolkit is really nice but it is not finished. If Ruby offers me more libraries with the time, i think i will use it. The many dialects is a handicap for Smalltalk.
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