Marc Abramowitz » GNU Smalltalk

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10/10/2006

GNU Smalltalk

October 10th 2006 Posted to Linux, Open source, Programming, Smalltalk, Software, Ubuntu

GNU Smalltalk is strange, once you’ve gotten accustomed to Squeak or VisualWorks.

GNU Smalltalk is not graphical and it actually does use files. As a result of using regular files, it uses a weird exclamation point syntax to separate logical items.

Installing on Ubuntu is easy:

sudo apt-get install gnu-smalltalk

Here’s a sample file, which is the bank account example from the tutorial. Incidentally, this page tells you to use:

Smalltalk snapshot: 'myimage.im' !

to save an image, but that no longer works. Instead, you should use:

ObjectMemory snapshot: 'myimage.im' !

The Ubuntu package is not without its problems. Looking at the FTP server, the Ubuntu package installs version 2.1.8, which is a fairly old version from June of 2004, while there is a 2.2 version that dates to November of 2005. I also could not get the graphical environment, called Blox, to work:

marc@tbird:~/gst$ gst-blox
Loading package BloxTK
Object: DLD error: requested module blox-tk was not found
SystemExceptions.CInterfaceError(Exception)>>#signal
SystemExceptions.CInterfaceError class(Exception class)>>#signal:
DLD class>>#addModule:
optimized [] in PackageLoader class>>#primFileInPackage:
Set(HashedCollection)>>#do:
PackageLoader class>>#primFileInPackage:
optimized [] in PackageLoader class>>#fileInPackages:
OrderedCollection(SequenceableCollection)>>#do:
PackageLoader class>>#fileInPackages:
PackageLoader class>>#fileInPackage:
UndefinedObject>>#executeStatements
/usr/share/gnu-smalltalk/browser/Run.st:44: invalid scope resolution

marc@tbird:~/gst$ gst -V -K blox-tk/Blox.st
Processing /usr/share/gnu-smalltalk/blox-tk/Blox.st
Object: FileStream error: could not open BloxBasic.st
SystemExceptions.FileError(Smalltalk.Exception)>>#signal
SystemExceptions.FileError class(Smalltalk.Exception class)>>#signal:
[] in Smalltalk.FileStream class(Smalltalk.FileDescriptor class)>>#open:mode:
[] in Smalltalk.FileStream class(Smalltalk.FileDescriptor class)>>#fopen:mode:ifFail:
Smalltalk.FileStream(Smalltalk.FileDescriptor)>>#fileOp:with:with:ifFail:
Smalltalk.FileStream class(Smalltalk.FileDescriptor class)>>#fopen:mode:ifFail:
VFS.RealFileHandler>>#open:mode:ifFail:
Smalltalk.FileStream class(Smalltalk.FileDescriptor class)>>#open:mode:
Smalltalk.FileStream class>>#fileIn:
optimized [] in Smalltalk.UndefinedObject>>#executeStatements
Smalltalk.Array(Smalltalk.SequenceableCollection)>>#do:
Smalltalk.UndefinedObject>>#executeStatements

marc@tbird:~/gst$ gst -V -K blox-tk/BloxBasic.st
Processing /usr/share/gnu-smalltalk/blox-tk/BloxBasic.st
'C function tclInit not defined'
'C function Tcl_Eval not defined'
'C function Tcl_GetStringResult not defined'
'C function bloxIdle not defined'

So I went ahead and built the 2.2 version and lo and behold, I got Blox to work (it’s not as pretty as VisualWorks or Squeak but at least it gives you a Transcript, Workspace, Hierarchy Browser, etc.).

For the benefit of others, here’s gnu-smalltalk-2.2-1_i386.deb, (which I created with CheckInstall). Enjoy.

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