>I'm involved in the development of a aquisition and data computation
>system in a research institute and was originally decided to use C++ to
>develop such complex system.
>
>I've been doing some experiments (fun!!) with Squeak for some time now
>and am considering the opportuinity to use version 2.5 for my project.
>
>My question is : Is Squeak fast and stable enougth to use in the
>development of such system..

Pedro -

Regarding speed, you have the beast in your hands.  I suggest you determine the critical areas of your application and then benchmark that particular function in Squeak.

People use "stability" to mean "free of bugs (won't crash out from under me)" and "free of capricious change (won't suddenly break my app when I get the next set of updates)".  Regarding the first issue, I am probably not the right person to ask, but we use and abuse Squeak daily and I consider it to be as bug-free as any commercial software.  Regarding the second, Squeak is intentionally not very stable in this regard.  Anyone who wants to maintain a major system in Squeak would be advised to adopt and maintain a fixed version on their own, thus avoiding the problem of "shifting sands".

Hope this helps.

	- Dan