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Latest featured content about SmallTalk

Evan Phoenix on Rubinius

Community
Ruby
Topics
Runtimes,
Language,
Dynamic Languages

Evan Phoenix discusses Rubinius, a modern Ruby VM loosely based on the Smalltalk-80 architecture. The goal is to build a fast, efficient VM with the latest research in dynamic language implementations

Zed Shaw on Mongrel, Ruby stacks and languages besides Ruby

Community
Ruby
Topics
Technology,
Ruby on Rails,
Programming

Zed Shaw sat down with InfoQ's Obie Fernandez to talk about his project Mongrel. The discussion moves on Ruby in the Enterprise and ways to make money from it. The interview ends with Zed talking about his ventures into languages such as Smalltalk, Lua and the Forth-inspired Factor.

JAOO Panel: Who will Develop Software in 10 Years?

Community
Architecture
Topics
Business,
Events,
Open Source,
Grid Computing

Martin Fowler, Frank Buschmann, Steve Cook, Jimmy Nilsson, and Dave Thomas discuss the future of software development. Topics covered include outsourcing, is Google the next MS?, multi-core & parallism, grid computing, software stacks of the future, and more. A thoroughly thought-provoking panel! JAOO is producing the QCon event.

News about SmallTalk

MagLev: Gemstone builds Ruby runtime based on Smalltalk VM

Community
Architecture,
Ruby
Topics
Runtimes,
Language,
Performance & Scalability,
Database Design,
Dynamic Languages,
Ruby on Rails

OODB vendor Gemstone works on a Ruby VM called MagLev. Working with Seaside's and DabbleDB's Avi Bryant, Gemstone bases the Ruby runtime on their Smalltalk VM to offer performance and powerful persistence features. We talked to Avi Bryant and Gemstone's Bob Walker about the technology behind MagLev and the plans for it.

Interview: Wilson Bilkovich Discusses Rubinius

Community
Ruby
Topics
Runtimes,
Compilers,
Performance & Scalability,
Dynamic Languages

Wilson Bilkovich is an Engine Yard employee working as a core Rubinius team member. Wilson discusses various Rubinius systems and how they're implemented, as well as distributed version control systems, the Ruby Hit Squad, RubyGems and more.

How to Develop New Activities for the One Laptop Per Child Project?

Community
Java,
Agile,
Architecture,
Ruby
Topics
Javascript,
Scripting,
Linux,
Programming

The One Laptop Per Child project has starting shipping its first generation of XO laptops. OLPC "is not a laptop project, it is an education project", explains Nicholas Negroponte, director of the project. A full Sugar based development environment is available for developers to contribute new activities to the project. Sugar supports collaborative activities when XOs are meshed together.

Inside the full speed Rubinius debugger

Community
Ruby
Topics
Technology,
Runtimes,
Performance & Scalability,
Debugging

Debugging Ruby code just got much faster - at least with Rubinius. Unlike the debuggers for MRI or JRuby, the Rubinius full speed debugger allows programs to run at normal speed while they're debugged. We take a look at how the Rubinius VM's transparent design made this possible.

Duck Typing and Protocols vs. Inheritance

Community
Architecture,
Ruby
Topics
Object Oriented Design,
Language,
Design,
Programming

A recent debate on the RubyTalk list asked where to use is_a? vs respond_to? This highlights situations where objects respond to the same interface, but don't share any superclasses. We look at this debate and solutions in other languages such as Smalltalk, Erlang, and Scala.

Debuggers considered Harmful?

Community
Ruby
Topics
Software Testing,
Code Analysis,
Debugging,
Programming

A blog post titled "Debugger Support Considered Harmful" claims that Ruby debugging support is lacking - and that that's a good thing. We look at the various rebuttals and the state of Ruby debuggers.