Introduction to Smalltalk: A Beginner’s Guide

July 13, 2024

Welcome to our beginner’s guide to Smalltalk! In this post, we will explore the fascinating world of Smalltalk, a powerful and influential programming language that has made significant contributions to the field of software development.

The History of Smalltalk

Smalltalk was created in the 1970s at Xerox PARC by Alan Kay, Dan Ingalls, Adele Goldberg, and others. It was designed as a dynamic, reflective, and object-oriented language to support the concept of object-oriented programming (OOP).

Features of Smalltalk

Smalltalk is known for its simplicity and elegance. Here are some key features of Smalltalk:

  • Object-oriented: Everything in Smalltalk is an object, including classes and methods.
  • Message passing: Objects communicate with each other by sending messages.
  • Dynamic typing: Variables are dynamically typed, allowing for flexibility in programming.
  • Reflection: Smalltalk allows objects to examine and modify their structure and behavior at runtime.
  • Image-based development: Smalltalk applications are developed and run within an image, which captures the state of the system.

Why Learn Smalltalk?

Although Smalltalk is not as widely used as some other programming languages today, it has had a significant impact on the development of modern programming languages and frameworks. Learning Smalltalk can help programmers understand the fundamental principles of OOP and gain a deeper insight into software design and architecture.

Getting Started with Smalltalk

To start learning Smalltalk, you can use an implementation like Squeak or Pharo, which are free and open-source. These environments provide tools and resources for writing and running Smalltalk code.

Here is a simple ‘Hello, World!’ program in Smalltalk:

Object subclass: #HelloWorld
    instanceVariableNames: ''
    classVariableNames: ''
    poolDictionaries: ''
    category: 'HelloWorld'

HelloWorld << Object subclass: #HelloWorld
    instanceVariableNames: ''
    classVariableNames: ''
    poolDictionaries: ''
    category: 'HelloWorld'

HelloWorld >> #new
    ^super new

HelloWorld >> #sayHello
    Transcript show: 'Hello, World!'

HelloWorld new sayHello.>

Run this code in a Smalltalk environment to see the classic ‘Hello, World!’ message displayed.

Conclusion

Smalltalk may not be as popular as some other languages, but its influence on the world of programming cannot be understated. By learning Smalltalk, you can gain valuable insights into object-oriented programming and software development principles that will benefit you in your programming journey.

We hope this introduction to Smalltalk has piqued your interest in exploring this unique and powerful language further. Stay tuned for more tutorials and guides on Smalltalk programming!