Are there any smalltalk fans out here that can point out to the unenlightened the "interesting" aspects of Smalltalk? It seems to have quite the following.
StepTalk is another Smalltalk-ObjectiveC legacy framework, originally meant for Smalltalk-like scripting of ObjectiveC apps/tools. It was built for GNUstep but worked on early versions of Cocoa as well: <a href="https://github.com/stiivi/StepTalk" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/stiivi/StepTalk</a>. It is no longer maintained, therefore it might need a little bit of refreshment.<p>It is light-weight SmallTalk interpreter on top of ObjectiveC objects. See the examples for better idea of what it does: <a href="https://github.com/Stiivi/StepTalk/tree/master/Examples" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Stiivi/StepTalk/tree/master/Examples</a>
The given example for HOM is a bit unfair. From their docs:<p><pre><code> for ( NSView *aView in [[self view] subviews] ) {
[aView setNeedsDisplay];
}
</code></pre>
They use this as an example to show that Objective-C is bad. However you can rewrite that with:<p><pre><code> [self.view.subviews makeObjectsPerformSelector:@selector(setNeedsDisplay)];
</code></pre>
That being said: I think that Objective-C could move faster as a language. We have seen Apple to speed up the development of Objective-C during the last few years and I think that Apple will move even faster in the future.
As a long time Smalltalk lover, I can only UP this project !
I'll have no use for it immediately, but it's good to know where it can be found.
Interesting.<p>I had a quick look, but I don't see any mention about memory management. Because it must have <i>fully deterministic realtime aware architecture</i> to replace or complement Objective-C, and memory management strategy is one of the most important stuff. If it's based on typical (non-deterministic) GC, then it won't be that much interesting anymore.<p>Also, I think using `<-` instead of `:=` would be better for a new Smalltalk dialect. With proper editor support, the arrow sign will look far better then colon-equal sign.
As an iOS programmer and long time Objective-C fan, I like the direction it is going. How is the memory management done? Since ARC is basically done by the compiler I wonder if that can be leveraged?
what makes me skeptical is this "Generic raw pointers are not supported". The goal of C type languages are to offer performance not ease of use. So if that means loss of performance kinda defends the purpose. And if I want ease of use I rather use Pharo . But I support the effort, and I am certainly very interested to see what will come out of this :)
Interesting. Does this support/run on/with alternative platforms like gnustep, or does it require os x for development and only target ios/osx? Would it be feasible to port?
See the last time this was discussed on Hacker News: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917740" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6917740</a>