I love Smalltalk and still wish to build applications using it, but I think
we need to find ways to work with the huge amount of effort the Java
community is putting into what they are doing.  I happen to be stuck earning
a living with Java and try to combine my Smalltalk experience with Java as
much as I can.  This has created some really cool results with the people I
work with when I can explain to them what the real power of objects all the
time really works !!!  Things like Talks2 are really cool ideas and allow us
to have the power of what we all know works without having to reinvent the
wheels others can provide :-)

Three points that have been brought up on this discussion that I wanted to
correct:

1- Can't do replace code on the fly while debugging in Java
This is no longer the case, sun has added a HotSwap that allows a class to
be replaced on the fly while a debugger is running.  This is used by a new
IDE called Eclipse with the JDT installed.
See
    http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/jpda/enhancements.html
look for HotSwap

2- Squeak/Smalltalk has the best IDE
Well, the Smalltalk IDE has some really cool features and works really well
when you are used to it.  But the folks at OTI have managed to do some
impressive work on an IDE framework called Eclipse (info at
http://www.eclipse.org).  This tool provides the most awesom IDE I have ever
seen for any language outside of Smalltalk.  Now Squeak still has some
things over this IDE, but not as many as you would all like.  It manages to
allow people to work with files, which 90% of the world deal with, but yet
provide a way of working with files that can make you forget.  The IDE keeps
track of editions of semantic elements within a file, like methods, fields
and classes.  Where you can replace any one element with a previous edition.
The debugger supports the HotSwap technology such that I can modify code in
the IDE or the debugger and the new code is executed (got a few bugs do to
JDK 1.4 beta status :-).

3- Squeak can do more
I disagree very strongly, there are so many more tools and support for many
different things that people need in order to build applications that they
cannot be listed.  Agreed a lot of them are complete crap, but many of them
are incredible.  Take Standard Window Toolkit upon which Eclipse is built
on.  SWT is a window toolkit that replaces the Ackward Window Toolkit (AWT)
and Swing with a GUI layer that uses as many host widgets as possible.  It
manages to look and feel like a real host application, without the awefull
feel of AWT and the ugliness of SWING !!!  A good number of the
standards/API that are being defined by the Java community are really
useful.  You can't overlook what the momentum behind Java just because its
not an exact fit.