[OFF] New Smalltalk Release

[steven_todd_harris]

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]

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:

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

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]

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:

 

[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.

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).