Small Talk Programming
| Field | Computing |
| Went Obsolete | Not obsolete |
| Made Obsolete By | N/A |
| Knowledge Assumed | None. In fact bad habits picked up from any other computer skill will probably hinder your learning of SmallTalk? |
| When useful | For rapid development of software tools |
SmallTalk? is a programming language and operating environment principally designed by Alan Kay[1]. It is a pure object orientated language, entirely dynamic, internally consistent and comes with a rich object library. The operating environment provides a persistant object store and a virtual machine for running SmallTalk? programs.
A number of more modern languages take inspiration and various technology from SmallTalk? including Objective-C [2], Java and Ruby. Each and every one has left something out. Objective-C lacks the virtual machine and Java only took the virtual machine and a tiny bit of reflection. These and Ruby lack a persistant storage mechanism as provided by SmallTalk?.
SmallTalk? will not be rendered obsolite until a single language and environment can perform all of the functions that SmallTalk? does and improve upon them.
[1] http://www.squeakland.org/community/biography/alanbio.html(approve sites)
