Damien Cassou wrote:
> I'm  wondering  what are  the  advantages  of  image based  programming
> languages comparated to file based ones ?
> 
> It seems  that smalltalk  developpers are attached  to the  concept of
> image, why ?
> 

I think for the same reason why people like automatic garbage collection. Why should I care about persistence (in the worst case writing serialization/deserialization routines) when the machine could do it (though in different way) automatically?

Do not narrow your view to the source code (definitions of classes). There are also objects which have to be persistent also. You do not want your precious data to vanish in puff of smoke if you turn off your computer. Normally, you would have to write the serialization/deserialization routines manually. That is boring. Think of image as your house. No house vanishes overnight when you close your eyes. You would have to build it again and again everyday (or several times a day). It is ridiculous.

I have heared that Java treads in the path of Smalltalk. There is implementation of some kind of automatic persistence of part of object graph identified by its root. One of the things my friend did during design of its-own-and-therefore-the-best computation environment (while concentrating on different problems (...)) was introduction of a image concept. It is not an oddity. It is absolute necessity.

If you do not have image, you have only bunch of source code. If you have image, you have a world where your attention and return again and again. If you enter the world, you will find it in exactly the same state as the last snapshot. You can continue to _work with objects_.

(my personal reasons why I think the concept of image in the context of personal computing (no extensive cooperation over network) is good).
-- 
mk