>>  Heck, not even the image is Smalltalk -- it's just an implementation detail.
> 
> I don't think so. IMHO the image is one of the strongest points. Is
> the context that make possible a lot of things.

But it's not like Python or Ruby couldn't have an image, it's just that 
people did not implement it.  The strong point of Smalltalk is the 
language, period.

I use Smalltalk without an image daily (except as a cache to avoid 
parsing 100,000 lines of base classes every other minute) and I prefer 
it a lot over Ruby (I don't do Python).

Paolo