"Jerry Bell" <jdbell at fareselaw.com> writes:

> They appear to be very early in their project so it wouldn't be
> entirely impossible that they might change development platforms if
> given good reason.  Also, it does look like this project is actually

Yes. It really looks like Smalltalk would be a nice implementation
language for this project. I'd prefer it myself. However, there are
a few reasons why this is not going to happen: 

  - the key reason for choosing the wxWindows framework is that
    it offers native widgets on the supported platforms. Do not
    underestimate this. Squeak applications look alien and awkward 
    for many users. If I show someone Smalltalk, I always make
    sure to also show Dolphin and VisualWorks (although VW also
    loses in this department) because of the many negative
    comments I got about Squeak's GUI.  

  - a rich set of Python libraries for stuff like Jabber, RDF, 
    the other zillion XML "technologies", a proven, widely used, 
    easy-to-use persistent object storage, IMAP, SSL, etc. Yes,
    I _do_ know that some of this is also available for Squeak.  

  - the network effect of being able to leverage the work and
    knowledge of thousands of Python programmers