RE: Basic Questions

[Mark Bratcher]

HI Gary

 

To add to the answers provided so far, regarding the question of whether gst has a separate editor mode… are you referring to something stated in the GST documentation or the Smalltalk 80 document? Smalltalk, in its purest form, is a whole GUI IDE, which of course includes built in editing, class browsing, etc. The idea is that you develop and execute your Smalltalk program all within that environment. Smalltalk 80 assumes this IDE.

 

GST is a command-line & text file based implementation of Smalltalk. You’re in the world of using text editors, like `vi` (which does have a decent syntax highlighter for Smalltalk) and doing things from command line. In my case, I created some makefiles to facilitate my gst development. I highly recommend learning about “packages”. If you bundle your code into packages, you can manage them easily, pulling them into your project. Here’s a link to an answer I provided on Stackoverflow which talks very briefly about packages and provides a link: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37054929/using-extended-classes-in-gst-gnu-smalltalk/37076801#37076801.

 

I’ve used Seaside and the associated web server, so I know that works. You just need to find and read all the information about setting it up. If you search, you’ll find some good online information regarding setup.

 

Mark

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

From: Derek Zhou via Users mailing list for the GNU Smalltalk environment
Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 2020 10:22 AM
To: help-smalltalk@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Basic Questions

 

 

Gary Highberger writes:

 

> I'm teaching myself GNU Smalltalk.

> • Dual boot Macbook Air running Ubuntu 20.04

> • GST 3.2.5

> • Documentation:

>         https://www.gnu.org/software/smalltalk/manual/gst.txt

>         Bluebook

> 

> 1.  Does Emacs support gst? Neither .st file text highlighting nor

> interactor mode appear to work. The documentation says gst works with Emacs.

Yes. The gst source distribution contains smalltalk-mode. Or you can use

the newer version smalltalk-mode from ELPA:

M-x package-install smalltalk-mode

> 

> 2.  Is pi and Float supported? The class extend example (area and

> circumference methods) doesn't work.

Yes. pi is not pre-defined though.

> 

> 3.  Does gst have a separate editor mode? The documentation implies it does.

> 

It has a gst-mode that make smalltalk REPL works in emacs. However it is

not maintained for a long time so I don't know. Ro are you talking about

somethine else?

> 4.  I'm using vim as my editor and loading my program using FileStream

> fileIn: 'myfile.st'. I'm debugging using printNl. Is this the best way? Vim

> knows st keywords.

That works too.

> 

> 5.  Does the web server, swazoo, and framework, seaside, work? I couldn't

> get them to run.

Yes. However I haven't try that for a long time.

> 

> 6.  My application is realtime machinery control with web page UI.

> 

> 7.  Does gst-browser work?

You mean the gtk GUI? Yes, but I am afraid not many people use that so

get help is not easy.

 

Derek