On 7 March 2012 10:09, dimitris chloupis <thekilon at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> I don't think embeding should be the focus. I think that the focus should be
> an improvement in FFI and thread support .
>
> When I  look at python I see a language that started with a rather huge
> emphasis on embedding, its was a way to simplify your c/c++ app but
> nowdays embedding python is frowned upon and generally considered a bad
> practice among the python developers (python mantra -> dont embed , extend)
> . And if you see how much successful ctypes have been for python its quick
> to figure out what direction python is going. Lua on the other hand though
> it always prioritised embedding never became really popular.
>
> The main problem that any coder will have with smalltalk is not that he or
> she wont like it, but the fact that he / she will have to make a rather big
> compromise considering the libraries. Python became so popular not only
> because its a great simple easy to use language but also because has a great
> amount of mature libraries. But those libraries did not came out of the blue
> , they are not really "python" libraries, the vast majoriry of them are
> ports from c/c++ libraries and I think smalltalk could use the same recipe
> of success. So anything that can give a big boost to the libraries of
> smalltalk is something that its my personal opinion the one thing , the only
> thing , that smalltalk community should concentrate on.
>

well, this is road in both directions: the more people using
smalltalk, the more ports will appear,
and the more ports appear, the more people will use smalltalk.
But i don't agree that embedding is something which don't have to be there,
while i agree that the most of developers will never use it, except in
cases when you already having
a big code base in language like C, and want to add some scripting
features, this is where embedding helps.

It will be always harder to use language as embedded , than just using
VM "out of the box". This is for sure.
But from other side, it is much easier to control your life in a way
like that, and if we think about commercial apps,
i think they would prefer to use it as embedded or not use it at all.

> So no I dont think embedding is worth our attention. But as I said, that's
> just my personal opinion.
>
> ________________________________
> From: Igor Stasenko <siguctua at gmail.com>
> To: Pharo Development <Pharo-project at lists.gforge.inria.fr>; The
> general-purpose Squeak developers list
> <squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, 7 March 2012, 2:35
> Subject: [squeak-dev] Smalltalk as embedded platform/language?
>
> It is very long post, so i decided to put it on my blog.
>
> http://computeradventures.wordpress.com/
>
> i more or less realizing the scale of changes in order to achieve it,
> but i also wonder why we do not pay attention to this aspect..
> maybe i miss something, maybe we don't need it at all. or maybe
> there's less painful alternatives...
>
> --
> Best regards,
> Igor Stasenko.
>



-- 
Best regards,
Igor Stasenko.