Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
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Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
#2This surely will sound like a troll, but the main thing that struck me here was the statement: "Just getting the code out of VisualWorks was a pain." How can anybody use a development environment that doesn't expose the source code in plain-text files?
Can somebody who likes VW expound on the advantages it provides?
Re: Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
#3This surely will sound like a troll, but the main thing that struck me here was the statement: "Just getting the code out of VisualWorks was a pain." How can anybody use a development environment that doesn't expose the source code in plain-text files? Can somebody who likes VW expound on the advantages it provides?
Smalltalk has been using images since ever. The image contains your world - your code, development tools and all your complete environment, preserving its state between your sessions. When it's time to deliver the application to its users, you just take out whatever is not the application and its dependencies and give the image to your client.
That said, I too find it a bit disturbing not to be able to import/export changes to the base image as text-files and being unable to build a clean image from source-code only.
Re: Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
#4This surely will sound like a troll, but the main thing that struck me here was the statement: "Just getting the code out of VisualWorks was a pain." How can anybody use a development environment that doesn't expose the source code in plain-text files? Can somebody who likes VW expound on the advantages it provides?
The advantage when working with Smalltalk is that your application is alive, all your objects are alive ... it's like working in "irb" or "ipython", but with a true IDE that can do all sorts of things.
An exception got thrown? The code browser takes you to the method that did it. You fix the error, and repeat the action that triggered the exception, and since the application doesn't completely die, you only need to repeat the last step.
It's crazy ... with the obvious disadvantage that it's hard to export / import source-code. That's why frameworks are distributed as already built images.
Re: Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
#5This surely will sound like a troll, but the main thing that struck me here was the statement: "Just getting the code out of VisualWorks was a pain." How can anybody use a development environment that doesn't expose the source code in plain-text files? Can somebody who likes VW expound on the advantages it provides?
Smalltalk has been using images since ever. The image contains your world - your code, development tools and all your complete environment, preserving its state between your sessions. When it's time to deliver the application to its users, you just take out whatever is not the application and its dependencies and give the image to your client. That said, I too find it a bit disturbing not to be able to import/export…
> I too find it a bit disturbing not to be able to import/export changes to the base image as text-files and being unable to build a clean image from source-code only.
I also find that disturbing. Another vthing i find disturbing, which may be a related problem is that although Smalltak lets you do all sorts of cool things like rotate its menus 30 degrees while the application is still running, often it just doesn't do what I expect for no apparent reason (other Smalltalk programmers seem to have the same experience). I suspect this progem is related to the fact that you can't simply get the state of the system as a set of text files. For me, at least, developing in Smalltalk feels a bit like walking around wonderingg whether I'll fall in the quicksand.
Re: Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
#6This surely will sound like a troll, but the main thing that struck me here was the statement: "Just getting the code out of VisualWorks was a pain." How can anybody use a development environment that doesn't expose the source code in plain-text files? Can somebody who likes VW expound on the advantages it provides?
The advantage when working with Smalltalk is that your application is alive, all your objects are alive ... it's like working in "irb" or "ipython", but with a true IDE that can do all sorts of things. An exception got thrown? The code browser takes you to the method that did it. You fix the error, and repeat the action that triggered the exception, and since the application doesn't completely die, you only need to r…
I seem to recall hearing (from the GNU Smalltalk author) that the text representation of Smalltalk isn't even standard. See http://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/manual/html_node/Synta..., for example.
Re: Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
#7what does this has to do with the Balkans?
Re: Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
#8This surely will sound like a troll, but the main thing that struck me here was the statement: "Just getting the code out of VisualWorks was a pain." How can anybody use a development environment that doesn't expose the source code in plain-text files? Can somebody who likes VW expound on the advantages it provides?
Smalltalk has been using images since ever. The image contains your world - your code, development tools and all your complete environment, preserving its state between your sessions. When it's time to deliver the application to its users, you just take out whatever is not the application and its dependencies and give the image to your client. That said, I too find it a bit disturbing not to be able to import/export…
There are objects in the modern day Squeak image that were created when Smalltalk-80 was released. In fact, if you explore around Squeak's image, you can find all sorts of disconnected bits and pieces that nobody uses anymore, that are just along for the ride because they are in the image. Sort of Smalltalk pseudogenes. It's organic, very different, and to me as a biologist who likes to program, quite fascinating.
Re: Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Smalltalk has been using images since ever. The image contains your world - your code, development tools and all your complete environment, preserving its state between your sessions. When it's time to deliver the application to its users, you just take out whatever is not the application and its dependencies and give the image to your client. That said, I too find it a bit disturbing not to be able to import/export…
There are objects in the modern day Squeak image that were created when Smalltalk-80 was released. In fact, if you explore around Squeak's image, you can find all sorts of disconnected bits and pieces that nobody uses anymore, that are just along for the ride because they are in the image. Sort of Smalltalk pseudogenes. It's organic, very different, and to me as a biologist who likes to program, quite fascinating.
I know I shouldn't, but this organic thing makes me worry that one day my working image could develop some kind of disease ;-)
Re: Smalltalk: Welcome to the Balkans
#10what does this has to do with the Balkans?
He's referring to Balkanization: