X-Nico

16 unusual facts about Smalltalk


Bytecode

For example, Java and Smalltalk code is typically stored in bytecoded format, which is typically then JIT compiled to translate the bytecode to machine code before execution.

Class-based programming

Although Simula introduced the class abstraction, the canonical example of a class-based language is Smalltalk.

Code browser

An editor of this type is positioned between a traditional text editor, a Smalltalk class browser and

Concept programming

In Smalltalk, everything is an object, and that rule leads to the undesirable consequence that an expression like 2+3*5 doesn't obey the usual order of operations (Smalltalk interprets this as sending the message * to the number resulting from 2+3, which yields result 25 instead of 17).

Extreme programming

The Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System (C3) was started in order to determine the best way to use object technologies, using the payroll systems at Chrysler as the object of research, with Smalltalk as the language and GemStone as the data access layer.

Ezboard

ezboard was written in Smalltalk VisualWorks 3.1 by Vanchau Nguyen with Jay O'Connor.

Interactive programming

Interactive programming has also been used in applications that need to be rewritten without stopping them, a feature which the computer language Smalltalk is famous for.

Java BluePrints

Before this, the MVC design pattern was widely promoted as part of Smalltalk.

Metaobject

The first metaobject protocol was in the Smalltalk object-oriented programming language developed at Xerox PARC.

Object-based language

Examples of object-oriented languages include Simula, Smalltalk, C++ (whose object model was based on Simula's), Objective-C (whose object model was based on Smalltalk's), Eiffel, Python, Ruby, Java, C#, and REALbasic (an object-oriented BASIC dialect).

Singly rooted hierarchy

This idea was introduced first by Smalltalk, the first OOP language, and was since used in most other ones (notably Java and C#).

SmartEiffel

The compiler was then called SmallEiffel, in reference to the Smalltalk language.

VisualWorks

In Smalltalk, code libraries are loaded into the running system, and become part of the environment.

VisualWorks is a cross-platform implementation of the Smalltalk language.

So even basic classes, like Object, differ from those in other Smalltalk-80 IDEs like Squeak and Dolphin Smalltalk.

Smalltalk is a pure object oriented programming language, which means the only way to get something to happen within Smalltalk is by sending messages to objects.


Daniel Henry Holmes Ingalls, Jr.

While best known for his work on Smalltalk, Ingalls is also known for developing an optical character recognition system for Devanagari writing, which he did at the instigation of his father, Daniel H. H. Ingalls, Sr., a professor of Sanskrit.

Little Smalltalk

Little Smalltalk is a non-standard dialect of the Smalltalk programming language invented by Timothy Budd.

Strongtalk

Urs Hölzle, who worked on the powerful Self compiler, spoke with Griswold about implementing the same "type feedback" in a Smalltalk compiler.

VisualWorks

The lineage of VisualWorks goes back to the first Smalltalk-80 implementation by Xerox PARC.

These can be "filed in" to the VisualWorks IDE to generate any classes not already contained in the Smalltalk image.