[OFF] New Smalltalk Release

[steven_to...@yahoo.com]

I know this is a bit off topic but because ruby and smalltalk are so
close I figured
I'd pass it a long for those interested. Please no flames

Ambrai Smalltalk 1.0.5 Beta2 is now available for download.

Summary of changes:

1. IDE improvements
- Syntax highlighting
- Syntax-based keyboard and mouse selection
- Splitter panes
- Text pane find and replace
- Keyboard navigation

2. Command-line
- Can run /usr/bin/smalltalk from the Terminal
- Can access command-line arguments
- Can access environment variables
- Can input and output to and from the command-line
- Can invoke other command-line programs
- Can pipe data to and from other command-line programs

3. Unicode character support
- Unicode characters can be used in the source code.
Comments, string,
symbol, and character literals may contain international characters.
Method selectors must still use traditional unaccented Latin
characters.
- Unicode character escape sequences may be used in string
and symbol
literals.
- All GUI components may contain international characters.
- UTF8 and UTF16 text encodings are supported.

4. Object finalization

5. Objective-C interface

6. Database interface

7. Cryptographic framework

8. Graphics framework

9. Weak collection improvements

10. Squeak file compatibility
- Can file-in Ambrai chunk format into Squeak.
- Can file-in Squeak chunk format into Ambrai (assignment
_ must be
manually changed to :=).

Enjoy,

Dorin Sandu and Mark Suska
Ambrai Smalltalk Development
http://www.ambrai.com

[Shashank Date]

steven_to...@yahoo.com wrote:
> I know this is a bit off topic but because ruby and smalltalk are so
> close I figured
> I'd pass it a long for those interested. Please no flames
>
> Ambrai Smalltalk 1.0.5 Beta2 is now available for download.

Is there any plan of porting it on Linux/Windows ?

-- shanko

[gabriele renzi]

Shashank Date ha scritto:

I think the point of ambrai ST is to be "The SmallTalk For OSX".
VisualWorks, Squeak, and other vendor do provide linux compatibility,
anyway.

[Lyle Johnson]

I can see that it's in beta right now, and the download is free, but
does anyone know if this is ultimately intended for a (non-free)
commercial release? That wasn't clear to me from the web site.

[Avi Bryant]

gabriele renzi wrote:

> I think the point of ambrai ST is to be "The SmallTalk For OSX".
> VisualWorks, Squeak, and other vendor do provide linux compatibility,

> anyway.

My understanding is that they've been quite careful to keep it
portable, so that a version for Linux or Windows would "simply" be a
matter of reimplementing the UI framework. Whether or not they ever
actually do that work is another matter; the Mac OS space is certainly
a niche that needed filling, but competing on Windows or Linux would be
more difficult.

And it's "Smalltalk" not "SmallTalk". That capital T tends to be a
very good way to annoy Smalltalkers ;).

BTW, some people on this list might be amused by the following post
from comp.lang.smalltalk. It's referring to the new command-line tool
that ships with Ambrai. I thought "Smalltalk (non-ruby)" was an
interesting choice of words:

> My first Smalltalk (non-ruby) CommandLine Application
>
> 1) Create a file called test.st:
> -----
>
> #!/usr/bin/smalltalk -r
> ConsoleWriteStream default nextPutAll: 'Hello World';cr.
>
> -----
>
> 2) call chmod +x test.st
>
> 3) execute:
>
> ./test.st
>
> I've been doing smalltalk on and off for about ten years. Never wrote
> this app before (not including ruby)

[Lyle Johnson]

Replying to myself: Someone from Ambrai notified me that they're
planning on making a commercial release sometime in 2005 and that the
price would be $150.00 (US).