Squeak practical use?

Yoel Jacobsen yoel at emet.co.il
Mon Jan 28 07:39:01 UTC 2002


Hello all,

    I'm a computer professional, doing system architecture and 
implementation of medium to large directory, messaging and other (mainly 
Solaris oriented) systems I have this inquiry sitting in the back of my 
head for a long while.

     I do LOVE playing with Squeak and implemented some nice ideas 
(currently - ASN.1 encoder/decoder to form a basis for an LDAP 
implementation).

    However, when it gets to practical, day to day programming I just 
fill that other languages (mainly - Python) is more practical. I can 
transfer my ideas into a running program in a short while.  When 
analyzing why it is so, I have reached the following conclusions:

    1. Squeak is TOO decoupled from the underlying OS. I want to make 
use of Solaris or any other high end UNIX like OS for memory management, 
process and thread scheduling, and so forth. I need to make sure that if 
managing the memory behavior of Squeak Processes will be done without 
affecting the entire environment (I want to work on code while another 
process is running in full speed).

    Yes, I can create a minimal image and run 'squeak minimal.image 
myscript' but it would not give me the advantage of managing a running 
process in my development image.

    2. Class documentation quality.

    3. Squeak is 'marketed' and therefore progress as an idea 
exploration tool. I usually explore my idea with the implementation 
tool. Python do both for me.

    So, the inquiry - Are you using Squeak for any practical use? Please 
tell me only about resource intensive applications (currency conversion 
does not count as a practical application).

        Thanks,

            Yoel






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