Andres Valloud wrote on Sat, 30 Apr 2005 15:53:48 -0500
> A community unwilling to send a message?  This is Smalltalk, right?

Smalltalk ranges from Self to Squeak. Self was about making no
compromises in the language design nor in the user programming style
based on the idea that the implementors were few (so their cost is low)
and very smart and would be able to figure out ways to get the speed
anyway. Squeak was about making the system practical and universal with
the speed coming from doing the "glue" in pure Smalltalk and the
critical loops in Slang (where much more than just sending messages is
sacrificed) which are then translated into C and compiled to machine
language.

The ideal would be a combination of the best features of both
approaches. On the Self side there are attempts to make the VM more
accessible to mere mortals (the 4.0 to 4.1 refactoring, the Self-in-Self
efforts about which almost nothing is known outside Sun) and on the
Squeak side there are attempts to make pure Smalltalk more usable
(Jitter 1, 3 and 5 and now Exupery). It is just a matter of time before
we get there one way or another.

I want to write polymorphic code and let the compiler generate case
statements (PICs - polymorphic inline caches).

I want to write well factored code and let the compiler generate big,
efficient blobs (with inlining).

I want to play with blocks and let the compiler extract control flow
strctures wherever it can.

In short, I want to program in Smalltalk and let the compiler generate
the Fortran that the hardware seems to crave.

-- Jecel