Paolo Bonzini wrote:
> 
>>>  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.

+1 from me. Some time ago someone posted his experiences with writing 
python image support on this list. Such a dualism could be a great 
advantage for Smalltalk implementations, because it would attract more 
people to the language at all and show them the benefits of an image for 
development. What help the best innovations if no comes to use them?

> 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).
IIRC, you're using/developing GST. I always wanted to try it out, but 
time can run so fast.... :(

Best regards,
Martin