Talk:Smalltalk

message: Probably better for the smalltalk code section to reference ANSI Smalltalk rather than Smalltalk-80 --Blouis79 13:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Code in ANSI Smalltalk?

message: From Methods and Smalltalk-V to current VisualWorks and from ST-80 to Squeak would make a nice section of its own. Also an impact section discussing C++, Ruby, etc. would be useful. Lycurgus 05:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A more detailed genealogy 

message: I feel like the first quote is too long... —Preceding unsigned comment added by  131.215.170.216  (talk • contribs)  20:28, 1 July 2007
:I agree. These quotations may be informative, but they need to be in a context where the user will understand them; in my opinion the lead section, where no context has been established yet, is far too early. They just clutter it up. I've removed them. Hairy Dude 20:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead section 

message: I propose an Influences section.  I wrote a skeleton of it, carved out from the History section.  Four key influences are well documented, so I introduced them.  The examples given so far relate only to syntax and semantics, but I don't have time to write about the other 3 influences: object-oriented message passing (Objective-C among many others), GUIs, and IDEs (such as Visual C++ and Eclipse).  Therefore I have left an  tag, as this would be an interesting short project for anyone that wishes to work on improving the article.  --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone added "Cell (biology)" to the influences section; lolwut? Does that mean I can add influences: "Pen, paper, abacus, a ball of string" to the other languages? 216.241.106.56 (talk) 18:57, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It's certainly a bit odd, as is the inclusion of the B5000 in the list (although that to a lesser degree).  OTOH, it is specifically quoting from an email written by Alan Kay.  Also, the documentation of Template:Infobox programming language say the following for the "influenced by" parameter: "Name of notable concepts, methodologies, approaches, or practices that influenced the creation of the subject of the infobox."  That's pretty broad.  Rwessel (talk) 19:14, 27 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Influences section 

message: The hello world section has a link to the 'main' hello world article? related yes, but this is not a section that talks about hello world, it is one example of it. Maybe have see also, Hello World, but not main article. Just my 2c 220.233.27.104 12:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Hello world?

message: See my remarks in Talk:Lisp (programming language)#Missing Stuff regarding the issue of whether Lisp uses the same image-persistence thing that Smalltalk does.  I've not used Smalltalk, but from the description given here, I'm not sure that's a model used a whole lot by Lisp.  There is such a technique available for application deployment, but it's rarely used for development in the way that, for example, MOO does.  Assuming anyone even agrees with me on this, and to avoid removing a cross-reference that I think is an interesting one to leave in place, would it suffice to say that Lisp has the capability but that it's more often just used for application deployment rather than for persisting development state? --Netsettler 07:36, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Lisp definitely uses Image based persistence. Of course image-based persistence is inferior in most ways to a real database and most environments these days go more for a true OODB or linking objects up to a relational db, but it's one of the many things that Lisp and Smalltalk have in common, that the first and easiest way to get persistence was to just take a snapshot of the environment and save it as an image. MadScientistX11 (talk) 20:56, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I know you said this many moons ago but I’m new I joined the internet today and I agree with you 2601:3C3:400:C750:0:0:0:905 (talk) 03:59, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Image-based persistence

message: I don't understand the "except variables" mention in the third paragraph. In Smalltalk, everything, including variables, is an object. This remark needs to be explained, or removed.
OldManLink (talk) 00:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section 

message: "Even the statement true become: false is valid in Smalltalk, although executing it is not recommended."
What does this statement do?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.89.247.164 (talk) 05:08, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In modern Smalltalks, nothing - become: checks for that case. But back in the old days it would swap the "true" object with the "false" object, so that when you thought you were saying "<condition that resolves to true> ifFalse:[do something]" it would actually call false's ifFalse: method - and while true's ifFalse: does nothing, false's implementation executes the block. Scrollbars would reverse direction, program logic would be inverted, etc. --Jamoche (talk) 21:38, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Level of Access 

message: I've added in the article a mention to the single dynamic message dispatch in Smalltalk (as contrasted to the multiple dispatch found in some other languages).
Currently, I think that something still missing in the article is a section (or at least a small subsection) that mentions and describes the inheritance feature of ANSI Smalltalk's class library (present in Smalltalk-80 and in most other Smalltalk dialects too). Some important points to be mentioned:
* It is a singly-rooted hierarchy;
* It supports only single inheritance (as contrasted to multiple inheritance supported by some other languages).
IMHO, no Smalltalk overview would be satisfactory without at least a small description of inheritance. --Antonielly (talk) 11:25, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inheritance 

message: Like many programmers of my generation I first encountered Smalltalk though the pages of Byte magazine's August 1981 special.  The magazine that month had a particularly memorable cover--possibly the most famous cover illustration in the history of computer magazines--featuring Smalltalk as a balloon floating away from an ivory tower on an island.  The illustration (see here) does seem to show up from time to time.  The balloon has become the symbol of Smalltalk-80 (see here).
In my opinion that illustration is historic.  As an important part of the long neglected iconography of programming languages, there is a very solid case for including a picture of that magazine cover on this article.
In a previous issue of Byte, on Pascal, the cover illustration showed a conceptual map of other programming languages, in which Smalltalk had been shown as an ivory tower on a solitary island.  The cover picture of the Smalltalk issue was a sharp ripost to the ideas presented in that picture, showing Smalltalk escaping from its constraints by balloon.
Before I obtain and upload such a picture with a view to including it in the article under the fair use defense in US law, I'd like to hear comments from others.  --TS 02:00, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Byte

message: This is an academic visual programming environment/experiment for Smalltalk. It has been nominated for deletion. It seems widely cited though. Pcap ping 07:43, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Fabrik (software)]] 

message: Should the List of Implementations include defunct ones?  I notice that Softsmarts is not listed.  The company and product are long dead, but should I add them to the list, anyhow?
Aside: I used Softsmarts ST-80 on MS-DOS (version 3 or 4, I think) in the late 1980s.  I recently found some of those old files, including the st80.exe file, but I can't find the st80v2.im and st80v2.st files... if anyone has them, please send me a message!  NCdave (talk) 14:40, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of implementations 

message: The first version, known as Smalltalk-71, was created by Ingalls in a few mornings on a bet that a programming language based on the idea of message passing inspired by Simula could be implemented in "a page of code."[1] 
Good grief. This is grossly wrong, and I'm afraid to read the rest of the article. It was Smalltalk-72, not -71, that resulted from the bet, and it was Kay who worked mornings to produce a system that could be defined on one page -- and the bet didn't specify Simula or message passing, it was to develop the "most powerful language in the world". After Kay defined it, Ingalls -- who was one of those who challenged Kay with the bet -- implemented it in BASIC, most certainly not on one page, and the reference says he took several days -- not mornings. -- 98.108.210.171 (talk) 05:47, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doesn't anyone read the references? 

message: Regarding section List of implementations, entry "Susie". Can Susie be considered an implementation given the description at http://sourceforge.net/projects/susie/ or http://dargos.com/Susie?,
: Susie is an attempt to provide a light weight scripting engine using Smalltalk as the language. it is based on Public Domain Smalltalk, which in turn is based on LittleSmalltalk. 
--Mortense (talk) 18:35, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. I removed it. MadScientistX11 (talk) 20:21, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Susie an implementation? 

message: Hey,
How would you feel about adding JavaScript to the list of Influenced languages?
It says 'some languages like JavaScript have taken Smalltalk concepts in another direction' in the article itself. Also JavaScript creator Branden Eich has named Smalltalk as the greatest influence on JavaScript several times.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.135.102.67 (talk) 05:22, 25 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding JavaScript to the list of influenced languages 

message: There's some info about Smalltalk-80 on the Acorn Archimedes in Acorn User no. 81 - April 1989 (pgs. 128-129). -- Trevj (talk) 12:35, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smalltalk-80 on Acorn Archimedes 

message: There are a number of red links in the list of implementations. IMO, they should just be deleted, if the implementation isn't notable enough yet to have a Wikipedia article I don't think it needs to be listed. These lists tend to get very long and uninstructive, everyone wants their favorite environment no matter how few people used it. If not deleted, then at a minimum I think the red links should be de-linked per wp:Write the article first  I'm not going to make any changes right away, in case anyone has a counter opinion.  MadScientistX11 (talk) 15:08, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Red Links in List of Implementations 

message: I made the following changes to the Reflection section, reacting to the tag for expansion and more references: I added four references. Two to document specific details about Smalltalk and metaobjects and a Smalltalk system that uses Reflection called Seascape and then two that cover the general concept of reflection. Those last two are pretty much by people who are most widely known as experts on the topic:Brian C Smith and Ralph Johnson. I took out the last paragraph that went into details about how you can use DoesNotUnderstand: I validated the early stuff said about that in the Goldberg book but the latter stuff -- about how it can be used like CORBA or an OODB  (even though I thin what was written was true) I couldn't find in any of those papers and also it seems to be going down the rabbit hole a bit, into detail about how to code specific things in Smalltalk rather than on the general concepts of reflection in the language. Also, while I think that last paragraph was correct, it got a big grandiose in claiming that DoesNotUnderstand: gave you full OODB or message brokering which of course it doesn't but mostly I thought it was just too detailed. MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:54, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes to Reflection Section 

message: I don't think that the Hello World example section should have a main that goes to the Hello world article. They aren't really about the same topic. If that article were a detailed description of how to do Hello world in Smalltalk it would make sense but it's about Hello world in general which is a different topic. There should be a link but not a main template. I plan to change it but just wanted to document the reason. MadScientistX11 (talk) 15:03, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hello World Example 

message: It seems to me that this topic
  displaying and entering Unicode characters in modern Smalltalk dialects
is long over-due.
Today in Pharo 3.0 (latest beta build) I confirmed that by using World | System | Settings I have been able to add a comment to a class in Japanese and then save, quit and restart Smalltalk with my comment intact and displayed in my selected test font of Windows MS Mincho.
In a second Pharo test to FORCE all fonts to MS Mincho, I found it necessary to open a new class browser in order to add methods, temp variables and method comments in Japanese.
In a Pharo method send test in a Workspace I have confirmed that a Japanese-only method can be sent to a default class, WideString.
I confirmed today that I could use 沿 as a kanji in all areas of Amber Smalltalk in a browser ( but in all fairness, this is not what is usually meant by Smalltalk, i.e., a free-standing client-side implementation with image bytecode and sources text.) BUT - at least since Emacs 23 there is adequate Unicode support in Emacs ( Emacs is the UI even for the advanced Oz language in the Mozart env so I try to view Emacs as an IDE however strange that may seem to traditional Smalltalkers) so Amber Smalltalk ( or, if you prefer, 'the Amber language') does have Unicode capacity depending on the terminal that you are working within and its char display, 'paste' and keyboard entry capabilities.)
I will test the old implementation of StrongTalk later today.  I assume LivelyKernel would have no issues, but must test.  Is there a "post-Slate" type of Smalltalk out there other than, say, Io, the language ?
Consider the situation in moving from UCS to Unicode in the earliest days of the web languages JavaScript and MIT Curl (the language, not cURL ).
I have seen a report that there is an implementation of DrGeo with Pango that displays CJK characters in somelinuc, but I am yet to confirm this.
In fairness, the web language Rebol is only at this time struggling to go Unicode as rebol3 (still in alpha, but now opensource and with an alternative implementation as Red at red-language.org ) but may emerge with no IDE capable handling Unicode.
This appears also to be the case with UI for the latest release of Icon implementation Unicon 12.1 which is nominally the "Unicode" Icon although there is an alternative Icon, ObjectIcon, at code.google.com/p/ObjectIcon ( see build instructions in docs wiki install section.)
btw, I see no link to a CJK language page at the WP article on DrGeo ( which may not mean that DrGeo is in, say, Japanese, But I see no sign of it on the web this morning using Google, fwiw .)
Robert
Smalltalk contracting since '91
G. Robert Shiplett 12:13, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  displaying and entering Unicode characters in modern Smalltalk dialects 

message: Some discussion recently ensued on the object-composition Google group about the origins of OO and Smalltalk, and Trygve Reenskaug pointed out that Smalltalk was conceived as much more than a language. I don't think anything has changed since then. It is more comprehensively an environment that supports a certain model of computation and human interaction. The language is a small, tidy part of this environment.
The article dwells on the language aspect of Smalltalk and leads to comparing Smalltalk with other languages (see the post just above). There may be a place for such comparisons but it's hardly where the meat lies, and it's not the major contribution of Smalltalk to computing. Kay had other perspectives ranging from models of how humans interacted with computers to how humans learn together with computational extensions of self. Much of the power lies in the classes in the image rather than in the language.
Should this article somehow be refactored or rewritten to emphasize and feature what the creators of Smalltalk would recognize as Smalltalk hallmarks, and perhaps relegate the syntax and semantic issues to a separate article called "The Smalltalk-80 Language"?
Jcoplien (talk) 11:25, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smalltalk — a language? 

message: Should there be a WP article about 'Smalltalk messages'?
In particular 'keyword messages' with explanations like
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/musings/SmalltalkOverview.html#Keyword%20Messages
x.addKeyValue(a, b)     // Java
x addKey: a value: b    "Smalltalk"
Or just better formatting of the paragraph  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk#Messages
3rd January 2018  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.211.166.133 (talk) 16:57, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: No. It's a part of language syntax that can be described here. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 18:37, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article about messages? 

message: There is a nice source on early history, if anyone interested: http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/ AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 18:37, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early History Of Smalltalk 

message: I think it's worth to cover these topics of commercial rise and decline of Smalltalk in 90s. It had huge impact on its future. If anyone interested, here is a link: http://www.wirfs-brock.com/allen/posts/914 AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 19:28, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Decline of the Smalltalk