Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 UW 5/3/83; site uw-june Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!uw-june!trow From: trow@uw-june (Jay Trow) Newsgroups: net.lang.st80 Subject: Re: what is smalltalk? Message-ID: <1792@uw-june> Date: Wed, 26-Sep-84 23:43:47 EDT Article-I.D.: uw-june.1792 Posted: Wed Sep 26 23:43:47 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 4-Oct-84 02:22:45 EDT References: <15756@arizona.UUCP> Organization: U of Washington Computer Science Lines: 58 Forwarded from Smalltalk80Interest^@Xerox ---------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 25 Sep 84 14:57:35 PDT Subject: Re: What is Smalltalk? To: arizona!budd@ucb-vax.arpa cc: Bay, Smalltalk80Interest^ What is Smalltalk? Good question. Those of us who have worked on various Smalltalk systems at PARC have pondered just that question from time to time and the answer is not simple. To ask another question, why does it matter? And to answer my own question, it's so that you can make a brief description that others will correctly understand. From this point of view, the way to answer your question ("is this a smalltalk implementation?") is to ask "what will people think it is when I say it is a smalltalk implementation?". The answer to this question is also, of course, open to debate. My personal opinion is that some people might reasonably assume that a "smalltalk implementation" had a particular type of user interface. So perhaps the slightly longer phrase, "a smalltalk implementation geared toward ascii terminals" would convey a more accurate picture. Depending on what your interface is like, the phrase "smalltalk programming language" might be just as accurate with fewer words (since it is apparently the language syntax that is most similar to other things called "Smalltalk"). I first confronted the question of what Smalltalk is when the Rosetta system was announced. Part of the reason I was concerned about them calling their system Smalltalk was my own fault. Since we had not published very much about what we meant by "Smalltalk", we were worried that when people saw the Rosetta system, they would think that it is what we had been talking about (and it wasn't). The folks at Rosetta were sympathetic to this concern and henceforth called their system "Rosetta Smalltalk". As a result of this experience, and of the fact that "what is Smalltalk?" is a hard question to answer, we decided to trademark "Smalltalk-80". So if you call something "Smalltalk-80" or "Xerox Smalltalk", it should be precisely the system we developed (and, yes, it will need a bitmap and a mouse). All this aside, I would be interested in hearing more about your "entirely different" underlying system, what are your bytecodes and why did you choose them? If you would like to publish something about your system in the Smalltalk newsletter that we distribute, or if you would just like to receive the newsletter, you can contact Duane Bay Xerox PARC 3333 Coyote Hill Road Palo Alto, California 94304 Dave Robson, former resident of tucson robson@xerox.arpa ----------------------------------------------------------------