Smalltalks question.

Göran Hultgren goran.hultgren at bluefish.se
Mon Aug 26 07:08:57 UTC 2002


Hi Gustavo and all!

Quoting Gustavo Pistoia <grpistoia at sinectis.com.ar>:
> Hi.
>   Suppose you have to implement a commercial application. Should you
> use
> a commercial smalltalk or squeak?

It depends. :-)

>   I have tried with Cincom Smalltalk and, I realize it comes with
> CORBA,
> Databases,
> and a lot of libraries. And also I tried doing '2000 factorial' and
> works
> faster
> than squeak. But also I know there are not as much messages as in
> squeak.
>   What do you think or recommend?

A few VERY personal notes:

1. Web app? =Squeak (Comanche with HttpView or Seaside)
Reasons: No funky Morphic UI to worry about what customers will say.
Performance issues dwarfed by HTTP overhead and database stuff (since webapps
also often are simply "information systems" performance is also less important.

2. Native windows UI important and crossplatform not? =Dolphin
Reasons: Ok price, very good Win32 integration. Seems to be able to "be around
tomorrow". Simply seems to be a nice Smalltalk.

3. Non-morphic crossplatform UI important? =VisualWorks
Reasons: I haven't used it in a while but I guess (and hope) it is still very
crossplatform and can produce rather nice UIs. Price unknown to me.

4. Crossplatform native UI important? =VisualAge Smalltalk
Reasons: Was very good a few years back when I used it on OS/2 and Win32. Price
unknown to me.

But there is always a basic rule: If I CAN use Squeak I sure try to! Why? Well,
to me it boils down to these BIG advantages:

1. The open source thing. I can do what I WANT. No nontechnical barriers to
worry about.
2. The community. I just LOVE the Squeak community. Why is it so good? Is it
better than other communities? I don't know.
3. Squeak itself. Morphic. Crossplatform. Stability. And surely much more.

regards, Göran

Göran Hultgren, goran.hultgren at bluefish.se
GSM: +46 70 3933950, http://www.bluefish.se
\"Department of Redundancy department.\" -- ThinkGeek



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