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From: klimas@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: Stand-Alone .exe's & C libraries
Message-ID: <4321.280dd75f@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com>
Date: 18 Apr 91 22:29:03 GMT
References: <91104.114417U09762@uicvm.uic.edu>
Lines: 31

In article <91104.114417U09762@uicvm.uic.edu>, U09762@uicvm.uic.edu (Steve Oster) writes:
> Is it possible to create stand-alone programs with Smalltalk/V or
> Smalltalk/V 286?  
	Yes, Digitalk gives you a tool with their runtime license
	to create an EXE program.  Object Technology Intl. also has
	some tools for this with their ENVY toolkit.

> Also, is it possible to write Smalltalk programs
> that can use 3rd party libraries (that are primarily meant for use
> with C compilers)?
	Yes, The Floating Point library in the goodies package is
	just such an example of how to interface ST/V286 into an external
	C program.  ST/V286 does have one limitation that ST/V-PM doesn't
	WRT interfacing into external libraries.  The functions are accessed
	via what are called primitives (desribed in detail in the manual)
	and although you can have a fair sized number of user defined
	primitives, the code associated with a particular primitive must
	be <64kb in size.  Another reality that drives C fanatics crazy
	is that there is not much to be gained by using C based functions
	in terms of speed or memory.  We have actually seen a reduction
	in total program size when we rewrote some C based libraries in 
	Smalltalk/V-286 and the performance was just the same if not faster.
	Hence the rule of thumb is, 
		1.)If C libraries already exist, partiton into <64kb modules
		and interface into them via the Smalltalk primitives.
		2.)Don't necessarily expect to gain performance or more
		memory by developing new code in C and interfacing into ST.
		3.)If you have a speed problem with your ST code consider
		optimizing the algorithms first and then rewriting the
		remaining time critical code in assembler. BTW Digitalk
		includes examples of this with the product.