From: Patrick Logan <patrickdlogan@...>
Date: 2001-01-09T13:40:02+09:00
Subject: [ruby-talk:8898] Re: Comparing Ruby and Smalltalk

Maybe this has been discussed...

Smalltalk (all the implementations I know of, except maybe GNU Smalltalk)
are
based on an "image". An image is a single-user database (exept for Gemstone
Smalltalk) of Smalltalk objects. (Including classes, since classes are
objects.)
An image is updated and evolves forward in time. Consider that Squeak
Smalltalk in the year 2001 is an evolution from the original Xerox
Smalltalk-80
image (and may be actually pre-date Smalltalk-80 from the Smalltalk-76
image.) That is, the Squeak image file is a result of changing the original
Smalltalk-80 image file, saving it, changing it again, saving it, etc.

Ruby is file based where files are scripts, and they can be included with
each
other as they are executed.

We are at a point in time where it may be more widely useful and/or
acceptable
to use the Ruby scripting approach rather than the Smalltalk image approach.

--
Patrick Logan
mailto:patrickdlogan@home.com