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I'm new to Smalltalk. I think I understand the basics of the language and now want to start with GNU Smalltalk (as it's free and has bindings for GTK).

As I'm coming from the PHP and Java-Corner, I'm not familiar with the concept of the Smalltalk images. And I even read now, that you don't need to use images in GNU Smalltalk. Now I'm confused ;-)

So is it possible to work with files and to include the classes I need with the PackageLoader class?

I would be happy when I could use my favourite texteditor (vim) for coding instead of an IDE, too ;-)

Please enlight me :-)

Zakariyya Mughal
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Marc
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3 Answers3

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Being a hard core smalltalker myself, I must say: I personally would NEVER work in Smalltalk without the IDE. You will never "get the feeling for it" if you try Smalltalk in a classical edit-link-compile style. It is possible, but only for well debugged, ready to execute programs - not for development.

So please: don't do it - you get so much power from the browser, and due to being dynamically typed, you really need it to be happy with Smalltalk.

PS: but, of course, you can do it: in Smalltalk/X, you can even go along the old style, by editing classes into individual files, compile them to .obj-files, link them to .dll's, and execute them as .exe. You can even debug them using print statements, if you want...

blabla999
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Yes, you can do that. However using an image as a kind of preloaded package cache will speed up loading your application. See http://smalltalk.gnu.org/blog/bonzinip/seaside-development-gnu-smalltalk for an example.

Paolo Bonzini
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  • Thank you for that hint. There is much good documentation about GNU Smalltalk and it's components out there, but the overview on the GNU Smalltalk homepage is not that good ;-) I hope the example will help in understanding... – Marc May 17 '10 at 06:21
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There's a free book which seems to answer your newbie questions - Computer Programming using GNU Smalltalk

igouy
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    Sorry, I read this book and it gives a very excellent overview about the Smalltalk syntax, but there is nothing concerning my question. – Marc May 15 '10 at 11:47
  • There are examples of Smalltalk source_code in files which answers the first part of your question - "So is it possible to work with files..." – igouy May 17 '10 at 17:26
  • As you know that PackageLoader exists presumably you have read enough to understand how to use it so I don't really know what you want to be told for the second part of your question? http://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/manual/html_node/Packages.html – igouy May 17 '10 at 17:30