If I wanted to understand things, I'd get to a small kernel.

I'd drop back to Mini-Squeak 2.2.
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-September/013578.html

Yes the window system is old (even 1-bit black and white!). But, it is
very small and would highlight your capabilities list nicely.

You could try Cuis or a SqueakLight image if you are looking for
something more modern.

SqueakOS used to boot off a floppy:
http://lists.tunes.org/archives/tunes/1999-October/002363.html




On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 1:59 PM, Derek Peschel<dpeschel at sdf.lonestar.org> wrote:
> Back in April (!) I subscribd to squeak-dev and squeak-nos to ask this
> one question.  Lurking has taught me a lot, but the threads about the
> future of Squeak overwhelmed my brain and I plan to unsubscribe after I
> get some sort of answer.
>
> I'm interested in debugging, reflection, and virtualization.  Fixing errors
> can be fun, and making changes at runtime is an addicting power.  Mostly I've
> been studying implementations and learning concepts rather than doing any
> coding.  Machine-language debuggers can be powerful (I've studied several)
> but they aren't abstract at all, so they are hard to understand and maintain.
> I'm looking for a system that is easy to understand and easy to make small
> incremental changes to.
>
> Smalltalk has always looked promising, since it's a high-level langauge that
> can describe most of its own runtime which includes programming tools.
> I still don't know which version is best for my purposes.
>
> Going from the beige Smalltalk-80 books and Inside Smalltalk, I've always
> assumed the original Smalltalk-80 code worked correctly, had decent high-
> level comments, and matched the comments.  Is that really true?  Anyway,
> it doesn't run on modern hardware afAIK and the limitations of the MVC-
> architecture window system quickly become apparent.
>
> An old version of Squeak might be Smalltalk-80 on modern hardware but it
> suffers from the same window-ssytem limitations.
>
> New versions of Squeak try to fix the window system but have made so many
> other changes.  I find myself dealing with small "why isn't this working?"
> bugs I don't want to investigate, or the concepts are much harder to see.
> Also the classic programming tools like the system tracer and image shrinking
> have been neglected for a long time.
>
> Pharo and Cuis sound potentially useful.  I still need to try them.
>
> What about one of the commercial Smalltalks?  Or a different langauge?
> Except the language should have an environment ready to go, and there are
> a lot fewer of those.
>
> Thanks,
>
> -- Derek
>
>