Rob,

Based on what you seem to want to do (the impression I get is that you don't want a morphic look/feel, so Lively Kernel won't work for you, and that says to me that what you want is at least DOM-based dynamic applications written in Smalltalk.)

If you have not already done so, I *strongly* recommend checking out the tutorial at

clamato.net

This is a Smalltalk variant implemented entirely in JavaScript by Avi Bryant. Or rather I think he bootstrapped it from Squeak using PetitParser (which is also worth a look if you're into PEGs.) 

So anyway you get a "standard" web look and feel, it runs entirely in the browser, has an API reminiscent of Seaside, a not-finished JQuery implementation, and the clincher: a Smalltalk code browser right in the web browser. 


On Sep 5, 2010, at 10:43 AM, "Rob Withers" <reefedjib at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have an idea for a large scale project.   Hopefully some of you will find it interesting and give me a hand as I don't really know yet what I am doing.  Please speak up with advice, pointers, links and opinions.
> 
> Here is my idea...develop a Squeak browser plugin for the various browser/os combinations which will emit and communicate with JavaScript which will run in the browser.
> 
> JavaScript runs in most browsers as a client-side scripting language.  It has reasonable UI widgetry for a client.  GWT is a really powerful framework/toolkit, which integrates a JavaScript front-end with a Java back-end.   In the process of development with GWT, you use Java classes and your own subclasses to develop the front-end.  You can code, test, inspect and debug in Eclipse (using a browser plugin from GWT for development mode testing in the browser).  When ready, you compile all the client code into JavaScript for performance.
> 
> I think it is possible to stream JavaScript to a running JavaScript page (page/instance/vm?) dynamically.
> 
> I think the place to start is to revive the browser plugin build for squeak. Next would be to serve up some initial JavaScript to prototype the concept. Next would come a thorough development of Client classes in Squeak to represent and emit JavaScript.  Not sure what that entails exactly.
> 
> Does anyone have any interest in such a project?
> 
> Best,
> Rob 
>