I'd certainly agree that Squeak alone for major database applications is a
non flyer, and I haven't a clue for an easy OOB cross platform solution.  On
the other hand, the plugin architecture allows you to partition the problem
into the control side (squeak) and the heavy lifting side (C++).  I created
a basic Windows ADO (Active Data Object ODBC wrapper flavor du jour) plugin
that allows me to manipulate a database of stockmarket data, and to move
many many megabytes from it, through squeak, and into our VR engine.  Squeak
does fine, the hardest thing it ever confronts is a final sort on a couple K
of ticker symbols.  At the end of the day tho, we are running tests that
chew through a couple hundred megs of data, and we've had little problem
with squeak.

I'd argue that Squeaks plugin architecture + SLANG are far superior to other
solutions I've used such as Java/IDL/COM/C++ <extinct>,CORBA <oh
puh-lease>,etc,etc etc.  No one language does all things well, and it is
true Smalltalk does iteration particularly badly.  But so does Java when you
get right down to it.  Squeak talks to users, which remain peripherals with
peculiar non-linear bandwidth characteristics.  Let plugins talk to high
bandwidth boring non varying things like databases and filesystems, let
squeak mediate the conversation with the user.

I wasn't planning on releasing it for a while, as it's "good enough for what
we need" and not much more, and it's ugly beyond description cause it got
hacked up with no real plan, but if anyone wants the sources to our Windows
ADO interface plugin, let me know and I can post them to our site.

Course that said, trying to figure out which parts/versions of SLANG
(wuz that asFloatObject or asOop: Float ? errrr) are fun, but reading
through the senders of cCode is instructive.......

Mark Mullin/Vibrant 3D