[Q] What is StepTalk?

Aaron J Reichow reic0024 at d.umn.edu
Sat Jun 7 23:24:34 UTC 2003


On Sat, 7 Jun 2003, Jeff Szuhay wrote:

> I found this at GnuStep.net <http://www.gnustep.net/>
> and was wondering if anyone here can give me a bit more background
> on it.

Then you have come to the wrong place. :P StepTalk isn't related to Squeak
in any way, other than they both implement some Smalltalk language. There
may be someone on here who has used StepTalk and knows more about it, but
I think you'd have a much better chance emailing the author if you want
information on background.

I doubt StepTalk will become some .NET alternative.  StepTalk is an
implementation of a Smalltalk scripting language to use the GNUstep API
without having to program in Objective-C.

Squeak on the otherhand, could become a .NET alternative, if the VM was
altered to support many languages with different methodologies.  The
Squeak VM may support this now readily, but it seems the VM would need
some modification.  Then again, people can and have implemented new
languages for the Squeak VM in Smalltalk, but they don't have the kind of
interlanguage interop that most of the .NET languages do.

Did you mean that GNUstep could become a .NET alternative?  As with any
API, a bunch of languages could implement wrappers, but that isn't what
.NET is.  GNUstep doesn't compile to a VM, but to machine code.  It is a
class library.

Just out of curiousity, why would you think that StepTalk could become a
.NET alternative?

Regards,
Aaron

  Aaron Reichow  ::  UMD ACM Pres  ::  http://www.d.umn.edu/~reic0024/
"the only difference it makes if some dust on the clay"  :: atmosphere



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