This is a Smalltalk frequently-asked-questions (FAQ) document,
distributed by Craig Latta <Craig.Latta@NetJam.ORG>. It is (ostensibly) posted
fortnightly to the USENET newsgroups comp.lang.smalltalk and
news.answers.
It is also available via FTP as
anonymous@XCF.berkeley.EDU:misc/smalltalk/FAQ/SmalltalkFAQ. Finally, it can
be obtained by mail by emailing Smalltalk-request@xcf with the subject
line "request for FAQ". The machine XCF.Berkeley.EDU has IP address
128.32.138.1.
Please send contributions, suggestions and comments to
Smalltalk-request@XCF.Berkeley.EDU. They are greatly appreciated. I realize
that information has a short half-life.
Obviously (to me, anyway), it╣s silly to force a structured document like this one to exist as a flat text stream. In the medium term, I╣m in the midst of redoing this document as hypertext (suitable for serving via the World Wide Web), and implementing a Smalltalk interface for editing and reading it in the long term. Offers of assistance are welcome.
Thanks,
-C
***
New items are marked with a '+'. Modified existing items are
marked with a '*'.
Contents:
0.0) [Meta-issues]
0.1) How can I browse ftp sites and their data without
using my own disk space (unless I want to keep
data), and locate files on ftp sites, given
pathname fragments?
0.2)* Is comp.lang.smalltalk archived or available via
email?
1.0) [Archival]
1.1) What free or low-cost Smalltalk implementations are
there? How can I get GNU Smalltalk?
1.2) What Smalltalk archives are there?
2.0) [Projects]
2.1) What is Smallmusic?
2.2) What is CoolDraw?
2.3)+ What is SmallDraw?
2.4)+ What work is being done with neural nets in Smalltalk?
3.0) [References]
3.1) Can someone recommend a good introduction to
Model-View-Controller concepts?
3.2) Is there a Smalltalk bibliography?
3.3) What are the "blue book", "purple book", etc?
3.4) Who are some employers of Smalltalk programmers?
3.5) What is the Smalltalk Report?
3.6) Is there a GNU Smalltalk tutorial?
3.7) What's a summary of multiple inheritance in Smalltalk?
3.8) What's the status of the ANSI Smalltalk
standardization effort?
3.9) Have there been any studies done on performance
differences between complete C++/Smalltalk
(specifically ObjectWorks\Smalltalk)
applications in terms of runtime and space
consumption?
3.10)+ Where can I learn about the history of Smalltalk?
3.11)+ How can I get the Smalltalk Resource Guide?
4.0) [Programming issues]
4.1) What are some "classic Smalltalk bugs", both in the
system and programmer domains?
4.2)+ How do I use Pool dictionaries?
4.3)+ When browsing sources, I see │t1▓, │t2▓, etc., instead of semantically
relevant variable names. What╣s going on?
4.4)+ What happened to >>deepCopy in ParcPlace Smalltalk?
5.0) ["Vendor"-specific issues]
5.1) How compatible is GNU Smalltalk with Smalltalk-80 (or
Smalltalk/V)?
5.2) How do I contact the producers of various Smalltalk
implementations?
5.3)+ How can I get information about HP distributed Smalltalk?
6.0) [Smalltalk implementation issues]
6.1) Is Smalltalk interpreted or compiled?
---
0.0) [Meta-issues]
---
0.1) How can I browse ftp sites and their data without
using my own disk space (unless I want to keep
data), and locate files on ftp sites, given
pathname fragments?
Answer:
This question might seem tangential at first (and I suppose it
is). But it is vitally important, as resources such as papers,
documentation, code and software tools become more numerous and
distributed.
There is a set of Emacs-Lisp ("elisp") code, called
"ange-ftp.el", which makes 'ftp' use transparent within GNU Emacs (GNU
Emacs is available via anonymous ftp from prep.ai.mit.edu). This
package attempts to make accessing files and directories using FTP
from within GNU Emacs as simple and transparent as possible. A subset
of the common file-handling routines are extended to interact with
FTP. Using these routines, one is able to access remote files and one
would any other local file, without having to write it locally to
disk. The result is an immense virtual global filesystem.
The routines are available via anonymous ftp (naturally!) as
[That issue contains preprints from the conference. It is indeed very good. In it, the editors mention that a book from the conference is forthcoming. It may be out; I haven╣t heard. --crl]
> > 8) I've never seen the famous article within the Byte (August-1980) --
> > it was impossible to get information about this article or even the
> > article itself. What was the content of this article? It's christmas
> > soon: I *really* would like to get a copy of this article :-)
>
> The entire ISSUE was on Smalltalk. Do you mean to say that none
> of your CS libraries have August 80 Byte? Hmm, I'll have to guard
> mine very carefully. And I'll see what I can do to brighten your
> Christmas!
Actually, the August 80 Byte was about Forth. But the August 1981 Byte
has been out of print for many years, and is about the only back issue
you can't get. They should reprint those articles as a book. I've just
lent mine, so this is from memory:
- there are some introductory articles and some on the philosophy of
the system and object oriented programming.
- there are articles about the graphical programming environment
( first look at cut/copy/paste for most people ), the graphic
prmitives ( first look at bitblt ) and drawing programs.
- the implementation is explained, as is an older version of
virtual memory.
- there is an excelent article on creating data structures in
Smalltalk, as well as one on creating control structures.
Jecel
---
3.11)+ How can I get the Smalltalk Resource Guide?
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 1994 14:48:58 -0600
From: johnson@cs.uiuc.edu
Subject: smalltalk resource guide
>Has anyone seen a publication
>_Smalltalk Resource Guide_ ?
It is published and distributed by
Creative Digital Solutions
293 Corbett Avenue
San Francisco, CS 94114
415.621.4252 (fax and telephone)
72722.3255@compuserve.com
cds.sem@applelink.apple.com
The price is $45, and if you use Smalltalk professionally
(i.e. if it is worth money to you to know about Smalltalk)
then you should get it. I was surprised to see so many
packages I didn't know about in it.
As they say about themselves:
The Smalltalk Resource Guide is the only Smalltalk-specific
directory o Smalltalk products and services. it includes
products, third-party tools, user groups, electronic
