Python development environments like Smalltalk [closed]

Question

I like programming in the Python language to solve daily problems in system administration contexts, and I am happy with that.

I am learning Pharo Smalltalk and am fascinated by the different approach of this language in object programming.

I like very much the idea of the Smalltalk virtual machine and the system image concept which holds the environment all in one file.

Does anything similar exist in Python?

Erroneous

Did you found something like this ? I also dream of ST-like system with pythonic syntax. Is it real to gangbang some system on top of cPython (2.7) with it's reflection features, does anybody have some experience how to write SmallTalks ? – Microwave

Answer 1

AFAIK, no. There isn't anything like a Smalltalk image for Python.

Diatom

thank you very much! I hoped it anyway :) – Erroneous

Answer 2

If you have enough time :) you could of course use Glamour and Petitparser to build a Python development environment in Pharo.

Haynie

Answer 3

Actually there is nothing like smalltalk in any other kind of language. The only thing ever to get close was and still is Delphi and its open source brother Free Pascal + Lazarus but still because it tried to keep ties with C/C++ its very different as a language and environment. I love python as a language and because is extremely popular, easy, simple etc. But as soon as you leave language and libraries territory you are alone. And that pretty much convinced me that the smalltalk environment is what I wanted the most.

The only thing approaching the elegance , ease of use and power of smalltalk environment is emacs. I won't mention vim here not because is an inferior editor and certainly not because is any less extendable.Vim is awesome. But emacs like smalltalk IDE are built on top of their own languages. For smalltalk IDE its smalltalk for emacs its elisp which accounts for more than 90% of its code based , compared to VIM that depends 50% on C source code.

What emacs lack in GUIs , it gains in documentation. Emacs also has a simple architecture , everything is not an object like smalltalk but is a function and elisp even has lisp macros for you to create your own syntax. For me emacs is another great , amazing environment to work into. Emacs has pymacs which allows you to script emacs with python and gain full access to all emacs libraries but elisp is not only faster but way more elegant than python as a programming language.

Ascender

totally wrong -- Delphi is pure compiller, and have no dynamic environment like SmallTalk. You can't dig into delphi compiler and add some special hints for yourlself needs, and target applications have no compiler inside, like you can do it with SmallTalk. – Microwave

SmallTalk key feature - you can get original ST system, modify it like you need (add custom libraries, or hack ST core itself, including JIT compiler), and sell your system as customer product specially tuned for your client requirements. – Microwave

1) If you want full access to the source use Free Pascal + Lazarus 2) I never said its a dynamic language as a matter of fact I said "tried to keep ties with C/C++" 3) deploying the IDE with a delphi app makes little sense because unlike Smalltalk , Delphi IDE is HUGE and way more powerful . Modern especially is based on .NET which by itself is 1GB download, Smalltalk is dwarf in front of such behemoth. So yes Smalltalk is awesome but its small none the less and it shows 4) .NET has JIT which Delphi depends on 5) its open source you can tune it all you want, not just lazarus+fp but even .NET – Ascender

Also "totally wrong -- Delphi is pure compiller" may had been true in the distant past but for many years now Delphi runs on top of .NET which like Pharo and Squeak and commercial Smalltalk runs on top of a VM with a JIT and the executed code is just bytecode. – Ascender

Answer 4

Let's take BlueBook and write SmallPython ourself ?

http://www.mirandabanda.org/bluebook/ http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks/BlueBook/Bluebook.pdf

Microwave