Advice requested: GUI project beginning

[Neel Krishnaswami]

Cameron Laird <claird at starbase.neosoft.com> wrote:
> In article <m12avmV-000wcEC at swing.co.at>,> Christian Tanzer 
> <tanzer at swing.co.at> wrote:
> >
> >IMO, Python has several advantages over Smalltalk:
> >
> >- scalability: Python supports tiny scripts and substantial
> >  applications equally well
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by this for Smalltalk.  Are you saying
> that Smalltalk is a big hammer to pull from the closet when you want
> to swat a fly?  Does Squeak not answer most or all of this 
> objection?  

Also, there's GNU Smalltalk, which is aimed at command-line use.

I don't think any of the listed objections were sustainable, except
possibly the point that Numeric Python is big fun. You can get the
same performance in Squeak using the fast subset, though I think
Numeric has had a lot more pounding and has a much more complete feel
than Squeak. However, most STs win on debuggability and general UI
friendliness, though IDLE partially closes the gap.

Anyway, I'd advocate learning both, just because each will yield
insights about using the other effectively. They have a lot of the
same design features, and seeing them in a slightly changed context
will provoke a lot of "Oh, so *that's* why things are the way they
are!" responses.


Neel