2009/2/23 Jecel Assumpcao Jr <jecel at merlintec.com>:
> An issue that I didn't mention in my first email but about which the
> community is very divided is how much effort should be spent on playing
> nicely with the rest of the computing world. On one extreme you have
> SqueakNOS which tries not to depend on anything about the hardware, at
> the other extreme you have Huemul Smalltalk (I have never understood its
> relation, if any, to Squeak) where the focus is using as much of other
> people's work as possible.
>
> http://sourceforge.net/projects/squeaknos/
> http://www.guillermomolina.com.ar/huemul/
>
> Besides Squeak, I also enjoy using many other Smalltalks (though I
> haven't done so in many years) such as VisualWorks, Smalltalk X,
> Dolphin, Smalltalk MT, GNU Smalltalk, Little Smalltalk, Self, Smalltalk
> Express (free version of Smalltalk V/Win) and so on. Some of the nicest
> ones owe a lot to their tight integration with the underlying platform
> (Windows, in the three cases I am talking about) and it is obvious to me
> while many people long for the same thing in Squeak. You get to leverage
> the work of a lot more people and get advantages, such as full use of
> hardware acceleration, "for free".

Squeak VM also leveraging a huge amount of work "for free" :)
Take in account a GCC compiler tools (can anyone guess how many
million lines of code buried there? ).
And this "for free" having own price,  like inability to express VM in
terms of smalltalk, hence slang invented with cool multiple pages of
code for a simple methods.. ;)

>
> But to me the most valueable characteristic of Squeak is its "runs
> everywhere" feature. So my support for being friendly with other
> software systems goes only as far possible without sacrificing
> universality. In other words, any improvement to Squeak which would kill
> off SqueakNOS won't get my vote. Full disclosure: my project is even
> more radical than SqueakNOS (I don't even feel the need to play nice
> with popular hardware) and I do intend to make money on it. But my vote
> in this regard would not be on my own behalf since I already have to
> deal with a lot of stuff like this and adding a few more wouldn't be a
> big deal for me.
>
> In my previous email, I mentioned that having all those old images which
> still run allows us enough backwards compatibility that we can move
> boldly forward. That is in part due to how isolated Squeak has been.
> Most other applications I still have from the same time frames no longer
> run on my current Linux installation.
>
> Speaking of moving boldly forward, this doesn't mean we should ignore
> other Smalltalks. I am participating in the new ANSI (no longer ANSI...)
> standard effort and would like to see it become easier to move code
> around.
>
> -- Jecel
>
>
>



-- 
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko AKA sig.