How Compatible is GNU Smalltalk with Squeak

Question

Hey all,

I'm working on an app in squeak that requires no graphics at all, its all just data manipulation. The problem is that I work in a fairly conservative environment and I dont think I'll be able to sell a squeak app to my managers (I feel like the bright colors, round interface and general "what-the-heck-is-that" feel of squeak will scare them off). So I'm considering running the app under GNU Smalltalk, as a more "traditional" command-line interface is less likely to scare off stakeholders.

So, can anyone either provide, or point me towards, a list or set of what features/classes are or are not compatible between Squeak and Gnu Smalltalk. In other words, how hard will it be to port an app from one to the other (again assuming that its non-graphical, so no need to worry about morphic)?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Pharo looks more professional, and might help. Or if you have less than 4GB of data, Gemstone. A Seaside user interface looks the same as a ASP.NET MVC or Rails one, and can be created easier.

Answer 2

There is an ANSI Smalltalk Standard (http://www.smalltalk.org/versions/ANSIStandardSmalltalk.html). Gnu seems to be a full implementation of the standard (see Gnu Wiki) and Squeak seems to be fairly compliant (see Squeak Wiki). So stick to the standard and you should do well.

Answer 3

The GST implementation will give you a much better answer than we can - so just try it - file out your code, and see what fails with GST.

I don't know how up-to-date the Rosetta "Cross-Dialect Smalltalk Code Interchange Tool" is but it might help.

Here are some minor differences that were leveled out to make things easier on the benchmarks game - GNU Smalltalk :: Squeak

When you hit specific problems ask about them on the GNU Smalltalk Mailing List.

Answer 4

I agree 100% with igouy; in addition to that, the main difference will be the filesystem classes. GNU Smalltalk's are more similar to what you get with Squeak's Rio package.

You can convert your code from Squeak to GST with gst-convert, google for "site:smalltalk.gnu.org squeak convert" (sorry, I am not allowed to post hyperlinks yet) which will also take care of some of the difference.

Answer 5

In addition to the other suggestions, make sure your SUnit test cases are up-to-date; it's much easier to find any missing methods in GNU Smalltalk that your application is using that way.