A Big Dream For Smalltalk …
I have a dream of a new Smalltalk!
I first read about Smalltalk in the 1981 issue of Byte magazine when I was in high school but it was not until 1986 that I got to use it commercially. I loved it instantly and I know you would too if you gave it a go. You can get a quick overview of Smalltalk from here: http://www.outbacksoftware.com/smalltalk/smalltalk.html and there are plenty of Smalltalks for you to download and try.
My dream is for Smalltalk to make a comeback and be available on the Java Virtual Machine (which incidentally owes a lot to Smalltalk). This is what I would like in that Smalltalk:
- A file based environment since this is what people are used to.
- A transcript / console you can run interactively from the command line / shell (like Lisp, Ruby and Python etc).
- A Web Development framework based heavily on Rails, since this is a leading framework and one that a lot of people are interested in. Sorry Seaside as you are great but sadly not great enough.
- An ORM framework like ActiveRecord. (EDIT: Apparently this is already available.)
- IDE support for Eclipse, IntelliJ and TextMate.
I want all this on top of the Java Virtual Machine because this is the only approach that appears likely to make it in the Enterprise where things that don’t run on the JVM are shunned. I have had many people say that a Smalltalk on the JVM would be slow but lets face it, there isn’t anything on the JVM that isn’t slow so this isn’t a good excuse to me.
Why not just use JRuby? I am and I like it but Smalltalk has a simplicity and a pedigree that appeals to me more and I think if you tried it you would like it.
Would you support my dream and show support by following my request page on twitter which I hope to show to those at Sun and Cincom who might be able to make this dream a reality ?
April 13th, 2009 at 5:22 am
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May 23rd, 2009 at 11:49 pm
[…] James Ladd writes: This is what I would like in that Smalltalk: […]