I agree with you cruizer. My friend who's also a Java developer even told me that the things that EJB is doing, they've done before using Delphi(pre-EJB)!

You might find my Smalltalk tutorial/primer of interest: www.chronos-st.org/Smalltalk-Getting-the-Message.html

Pingback from  bit qua bit  » Blog Archive   » Boldly Going Where We’ve Gone Before

You can download and use the powerful VisualWorks Smalltalk or ObjectStudio Smalltalk here:

www.cincomsmalltalk.com/.../CommunityDownloadPage.ssp

By the way, I looked at Alan Lovejoy's link above - an Excellent reference and tutorial about Smalltalk.

yep i've read that "getting the message" article. basically that's what OOP is all about and i've blogged about OOP languages used procedurally because of languages like C++ which treated methods as simply glorified functions, not messages.

>"Welcome to the 80s"

Err, Welcome to the 70s more like!

Has anything truly been invented in programming since 1979?

I think region-based GC is newer than 1979, but I could be wrong. :)

> Hey, the entire Smalltalk virtual machine is extensible and you can modify the thing as it is running

constraining what the programmer is able to do is one of the key kinds of progress that has been made in languages like Java and C#. Cautiously recovering some functionality in a safe manner is happening, but saying that you used to be able to do anything is missing the a very big point.

I program in VB.NET at work. Has it really brought nothing new with it?

I suppose all the things I like about it are Visual Studio based rather than the language itself.

If I use other languages I miss right-clicking on objects and heading straight to it was declared.

@Tommy: I think region-based GC is newer than 1979, but I could be wrong.

That's a pretty small aspect of a language to focus on, and doesn't have much to do with the language itself.

@ John: If I use other languages I miss right-clicking on objects and heading straight to it was declared.

Like you said, that has nothing to do with the language, and out of the half-dozen or so I use regularly I can always do that.

Inventing things is easy, getting them into widespread use is hard.

Then you never have used the smalltalk code browser or debugger. It's not the prettiest, but the ability to edit code in a running system really makes bug fixing easy. That, and searching for where things are defined is pretty easy as well.

Most GC algorithms were developed for languages like SmallTalk and Lisp, which predate C# by a couple of decades.

Also, restricting what programmers can do for 'safety' is stupid. The computer is there to do your bidding. Sure, you don't need to use these features all the time, but the tough 10% where they are needed, they are a lifesaver.

There's a number of things in the Smalltalk system which you CANNOT introspect upon and modify. How about the object pointer format? Or the format of the Object Memory? How about the definition of message sending in the virtual machine? Smalltalk is not metacircular and nobody claims it is. It would be fantastic if Smalltalk *were* metacircular but it is not.

Welcome to the club!

Once Smalltalk, always Smalltalk :)

@asjf -- those of us who know how to program are only annoyed by languages that throw up needless constraints.  If you can't handle the power, then maybe you shouldn't be programming.  The rest of us have work to do and not time for crippled languages.

I guess smalltalk is going to be my 2008 "language to learn" for the year. :-)

I first heard about smalltalk around 1985 when I did some contract work on WordBasic. <grin>

So what's keeping it from going more mainstream? First it was C/C++ and now Java/.NET that seem to "dominate". Is it because it's harder to grok or its just not readily available/accessible for most?

g00DLuck with sm@lLt@lk :)