Gary McGovern <gary.play at btopenworld.com> wrote:
	I'm curious to know if there are any plans to change Squeak 
	over to Java ?

I don't know what this question is asking.

* A rehosting of Squeak on top of Java instead of C?
  I think that's been done.

* Changing the syntax of Smalltalk to make it look like Java?
  Some people are working on allowing multiple syntaxes.

  I note that in the examples I've looked at, Squeak code is routinely
  about 1/6th of the SLOC of Java, so I for one wouldn't accept Java
  syntax as a gift (except of course in the German sense).

* Switching as much of the Squeak environment as possible over to Java,
  discarding the Squeak VM and compiler?
  Squeak gets a lot of mileage out of dynamic types; it's not clear that
  the result, if obtainable, would be usable.

	Personally I prefer Smalltalk and its benefits such as 
	workspaces, browsers, dynamic compilation etc (I don't like to 
	use get and set and some of the huge method headers) but I'm 
	thinking from the support angle. What could have been done 
	with the huge developer base.
	
There are lots of people _using_ Java, to be sure.  There are also lots
of people using COBOL.  Should Squeak "change over to" COBOL?  Or PERL?

	Or would it be a good idea to have a Java translator that 
	would give the apparency of the code being written or read in 
	Java syntax ?
	
Oddly enough, I'd been wondering vaguely about trying to use Smalltalk
syntax for Java.  Java is just so bulky it isn't funny, and I don't think
it needs to be.

Squeak is Open Source, and if someone _wants_ Java syntax for Smalltalk,
they are welcome to try to make it work.  It really isn't clear what the
benefit is.  Mastery of Java means mastering a complex notation and a whole
lot of classes.  Mastery of Smalltalk means mastering a simple notation and
a whole lot of classes.  As someone who writes Smalltalk and Java (but not
a lot of Java) the real problem for someone approaching one language from
the other is not the syntax (a competent computing professional can expect
to deal with at least a couple of dozen different syntaxes) but the class
libraries.  The fact that you would be using the same syntax to get at them
would not make the semantic differences between Smalltalk streams and Java
streams any smaller.