Smalltalk is making a comeback - Gartner analyst

I agree that OO is making a big comeback, especially with the explosive fervor behind these new web frameworks (Rails, Django, etc).<p>It seems to me that the biggest case for Smalltalk is that it was the foundation for Ruby, and Rails is definitely pushing Ruby into the top tier.<p>In other news, Alan Kay = badass. He came to my class and talked about how he was trying to use LISP to code TCP/IP in 80 lines.

How does Smalltalk bind to other languages such as C, in order to reuse code libraries? That's a pretty big question if it is to make a "comeback".<p>For instance, Objective-C adds quite a bit to C, and replaces C++ features, yet it can bind to either of those languages. And there's been work done to make the entire Python standard library usable in Ruby.

It's happened a time or three that one of the uninitiated has gandered at my bookshelf during a dinner party and picked up "Inside Smalltalk" only to be sorely disappointed.

He never explains how it's making a comeback.