SmallWorld 2007
Try SmallWorld in Webstart:
What is it?
SmallWorld 2007 is a version of Smalltalk
running on the Java virtual machine.
In particular, it is a continuation of Prof. Tim Budd's
SmallWorld, which was a port of his seminal Little
Smalltalk to the JVM.
I am not currently working on SmallWorld.
What is it not?
It isn't a version of Smalltalk-80, nor is it compatible
with the Smalltalk ANSI standard. Where it is incompatible
with a Smalltalk-80 system (such as Squeak) SmallWorld
follows its Little Smalltalk heritage - for example in the
area of cascades (;) and the current lack of Symbols (eg
#Something).
Who wrote it?
It is a modified version of the original SmallWorld, which
was written by A Prof. Tim Budd and can be found here.
Many thanks must go to Tim, whose work with SmallWorld and
before that his pioneering Little Smalltalk form by far the
major part of this system, and who was kind enough to allow
the release of SmallWorld and SmallWorld 2007 under the MIT
Licence.
How fast is it?
Very very slow :) SmallWorld is a very simple bytecode
interpreter running on top of a complicated and
sophisticated bytecode interpreter (ie Java). Two levels of
indirection from the hardware will introduce slowness. On
the other hand, because its development environment is
mostly handled by Java's Swing code, SmallWorld is fast
enough to be pleasant to play with.
2007 Edition
Version 2007.2 (May 2007)
Jar file | Zipfile with Image and Sources | JavaDoc
Changes:
• added traditional Workspace
• added traditional 3 pane Class Browser
• added False to Class>>classes
• renamed 'Magnatude' to 'Magnitude'
• changed image saving to gracefully handle
SmallJavaObjects (references
• replaced by nil
• the image format now has a version number (as I realised
it was likely
• to change again in the future)
• created Transcript as new starting point for image
• removed Image and Color classes (they'll be returned
later)
• imported Squeak tinyBenchmark methods for fun
Version 2007.1 (January 2007)
Jar file | Zipfile with Image and Sources | JavaDoc
Changes:
• moved the image file into the jar file, so SmallWorld is
now a single jar file
• moved the initial window from SmallWorld.java file into
the image and cleaned up some code
• changed from using java object serialisation to custom
image serialisation code
• moved code into package com.russell_allen.smallworld so
new code does not conflict with old edition
• split sourcecode into separate files for each class
• created #doesNotUnderstand: mechanism
Original Edition
Written by Tim Budd November 2004 MIT Licence
Homepage
Version 0.9 November 2004 Version 0.8 November 2002