Hi squeakers,

I'm a new member of the mailing-list and currently a Java developer in my
daytime job. What attracts me here is the dynamic power of smalltalk, the
consistency/purity of OO, and the unlimited potential. I've recently been
playing with jpython (see http://www.jpython.org or
http://sourceforge.net/projects/jython) to write unit test program. It's
really fun to write in jpython driving all java objects. Here is some sample
code:

from java.util import Vector
v = Vector()    # no declaration needed
v.add("abc")
v.add(123)    # no java.lang.Integer needed
for e in v: print e    # notice no cast needed
# no seperate compilation is needed to run the script

Of course Vector is not the point. It strikes me that if we can do similar
things in Squeak (possibly using plugin + JNI), we can tap in all existing
Java effort. For example, using JDBC, we can access almost all databases. If
Squeak wants to be the Linux of all languages, it should have some killer
project like samba, vfat to enhance its integration with other
system/languages.

Ideas?

-Brian Zhou
Agilent eCare Services
Philips employee-to-be