Am 15.01.2012 um 13:55 schrieb Gerry Weaver: > Hi Andreas, > > > >I am not comfortable with the idea to write parts of an application in > >different languages. > >Typically the disadvantages overweigh the advantages to do so as you would > >have different languages and systems to master >and update. > >Interoperability with other systems and languages should be easy and > >Squeak/Pharo are still lacking in this area. This is well >known and > >hopefully there will be some improvements in the future. > > I guess I would have to disagree with you here. Most of the editors and IDEs > of other languages are not maintained by the language proper. There are many > editors and IDEs that support many languages in addition to the one they are > written in. I think the benefits of using a full featured GUI toolkit to > create an IDE would be significant. > You should read the "Cult of the Dead" article on the squeak wiki.
> > >Planning to give up on parts like GUI is a bad idea in my opinion. Smalltalk > >would be even more niche than it is now. I want >to be able to build > >complete applications without the need to build parts in another language. > > In theory I would agree with you. However, I wasn't able to come up with an > application scenario where the Pharo GUI would work. Either the widget set > and OS integration are too limited or performance is a problem. For example, > the last several applications I have done needed to display PDF files. I have > done a little testing with Pharo and I'm sorry to say the results were not > very encouraging. The problem I think is one of limited resources. I think > that maybe trimming some things would render more progress on the core. > Perhaps a good and complete binding to one of the current GUI toolkits would > be easier to maintain. You would also get the instant advantage of everything > the toolkit had to offer (including performance). A more robust FFI would > inevitably be realized as a result. > Pharo's GUI and underlying frameworks are changing. I hope that they will reach a state where they can be used in application areas you (and I) have in mind. > >Especially having the IDE in Smalltalk itself and thus being able to inspect > >and debug and modify everything is a big advantage >over any IDE in a > >different language. > > I don't understand why the IDE needs to be in the image/language to do that. While I agree that it wouldn't be a requirement it would at least create more work. And I personally would miss the lively feeling... > > >All Smalltalk implementations have shortcomings in some areas. There are a > >multitude of reasons for it, be it commercially > >(greater estimated expenses than earnings from it) or just lack of capacity. > >Smalltalk users are rare these days and the >community is split because of > >different implementations and interests. For me, Pharo is on a good way to > >take the Smalltalk >language into a better ecosystem. But for the moment > >Dolphin Smalltalk is my preferred system because it's relatively cheap >and > >has only few known bugs. In my eyes it deserves a bigger community and > >better commercial success. But I guess that's >what every Smalltalker thinks > >about his preferred Smalltalk system... > > Dolphin seems to be one of the better implementations, but the problem with > Dolphin is Windows. All of the projects on my radar right now are moving > applications away from Windows to Mac/Linux (mostly Mac). > I have similar intentions or ideas. In my eyes there is no Linux OS but a bunch of Linux distributions that all differ more or less from each other. At the moment I see only Windows and Mac OS as reliable (valuable) environments. Alas Mac OS is lacking decent db support. Beyond Core Data there seem to be a total lack of solutions. I don't have the impression that Pharo (with DBXtalk) is a big advantage here either. And even if so, there are still other areas (like GUI and printing support) where Pharo fails for me. So while I would like to use Pharo I am still using Dolphin on my Mac. Regards, Andreas
