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Industry Misinterpretations 170: The State of Smalltalk

January 10, 2010 20:15:46.947

Here's our first podcast of 2010 - and we take a wide angle view of the various Smalltalk implementations out there. There's a lot more Smalltalk out there than you might think - go here for the notes we used for the podcast, with links to the implementations we spoke about:

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software.

To listen immediately, use the player below:

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Effortless for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to smalltalkpodcasts@cincom.com - or visit us on Facebook or Ning - you can vote for the Podcast Alley, and subscribe on iTunes. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

VisualWorks: 7.7
ObjectStudio: 8.2
http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com

Squeak: Version 3.10
http://squeak.org
Recent Split to create Pharo
Recent changes in the contribution model
Still embroiled in the license issue
"consensus" model
leads to forks (Cuis, Pharo, others)
new VMs coming?

Pharo: 1.0 RC1
http://www.pharo-project.org/home
Clean MIT License
Lots of forward motion
Seaside home
"benevolent dictator" model

CUIS Smalltalk: version 2.0
http://www.jvuletich.org/Cuis/Index.html
Squeak Fork
intended to be smaller, cleaner, lighter

GNU ST: Version 3.1
http://smalltalk.gnu.org/
Mostly Paolo Bonzini
GPL, GNU project
file based (but going to an image)
concentrating on bringing in libraries from other Smalltalks
Runs best on Linux, often has issues elsewhere (as per our podcast)
VisualGST for GST - bring modern GUI tools to GST

Smalltalk/X: Version
http://www.exept.de/en/products/smalltalk-x/stx-overview
inline C, static compilation possible
can build DLLs and executables w/o image
x86 (Windows, Linux, Solaris FreeBSD) and Sparc
Can provide oter platforms on request
Free for most uses, they do sell commercial licenses and support/consulting
license: http://live.exept.de/doc/online/english/LICENCE_STX.html

VA Smalltalk: Version 8.0.1
http://instantiations.com/VAST/prod/vast.html
Now offers an NC/Academic version
Bringing in Seaside (no continuation support)
integrated the entire Instantiations suite of add on tools, giving product facelift

Dolphin Smalltalk: Version 6
http://www.object-arts.com/content/navigation/home.html
Community (free) and Commercial (cheap) versions
COM DLL and windows exe possible
Weird schism
  Dolphin NG (Lesser Software)
  Andy Bower's more recent statements about bringing Dolphin back
General sales model difficulty for niche products sold this way

Gemstone/S: Version 2.4
http://www.gemstone.com/products/gemstone
64 bit, probably first commercial 64 bit Smalltalk
OO DBMS
GLASS, most recent efforts in Smalltalk here
MagLev - Ruby in Gemstone/S

Lesser Smalltalk
http://www.lesser-software.com/lswvst.htm
hidden from view - no eval versions, pricing unclear
native for Windows
building compatible VM for VSE, and Dolphin
looks and sounds interesting, with the tight Windows integration

Smalltalk MT: Version 5.6
http://www.objectconnect.com/
Native, Multi-threaded for Windows
Aimed at games development on PCs
Small, fast executables

F-Script: Version 2.0
http://www.fscript.org/
Scripting for OS X, like AppleScript but with ST syntax
built on Cocoa, allows full access to Cocoa objects

Smalltalk SYX: version 0.1.7
http://code.google.com/p/syx/
Windows, Linux, OSX, embedded systems
Small, targeted at building embedded apps

Redline Smalltalk: In Development
http://twitter.com/smalltalkjvm
Smalltalk for the JVM
Nothing available yet; just the Twitter feed and some blog posts

Etoile: Version (in dev)
http://etoileos.com/
Built on GNUStep, an OSS fork of Nextstep (now Cocoa)
Larger project than Smalltalk - going for entire layer to run atop your OS
Smalltalk is a scripting tool in this effort
recently added more ST level tools (workspace)

Strongtalk: version 0.200
http://code.google.com/p/strongtalk/
Fast JIT for Smalltalk, bought by Sun years ago to speed up Java
open sourced in 2008
minimal progress since then, but active mailing list
Works on Windows, Linux

Zoku/Smalltalk: In Development
http://www.smalltalk.org/versions/ZokuSmalltalk.html
research project, Peter William Lount
to support his consulting business?

Sharp Smalltalk: version 1.1
http://www.refactory.com/Software/SharpSmalltalk/
Mostly moribund, seems mostly proof of concept
Smalltalk on .NET
Classes wrap .NET classes

Ambrai Smalltalk: Version: ?
http://www.ambrai.com/
For OS X, but back revs
intended to be native OS X Smalltalk

PIC/Smalltalk
http://www.huv.com/uSeeker/index.html
Smalltalk for embedded use in robots, Jon Hyland's work

VSE: Version 3.10/2000
Moribund, died in 1997
small, fairly fanatical fan base exists and uses it
Windows specific (was win 95 logo certified)

posted by James Robertson

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