Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!hao!boulder!sunybcs!rutgers!umd5!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uiucdcsp!johnson
From: johnson@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
Subject: Re: Mac Smalltalk from Apple
Message-ID: <80500023@uiucdcsp>
Date: 22 Dec 87 02:44:00 GMT
References: <323@uhmanoa.UUCP>
Lines: 20
Nf-ID: #R:uhmanoa.UUCP:323:uiucdcsp:80500023:000:1160
Nf-From: uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu!johnson    Dec 21 20:44:00 1987


Apple's unreleased Smalltalk seems to be as different from Smalltalk-80
as Digitalk's, even though it is derived from Smalltalk-80.  Not only
did they throw out MVC, but they are using Macintosh graphics instead of
bitblt based graphics.  Thus, few applications will port.

Unless portability is important to you, Apple's ideas make a lot of sense.
The Mac graphics are much better (in my opinion) than the Smalltalk ones,
and the Mac user interface is better too, at least for novices.  (I prefer
three button mice and popup menus to one button mice and pulldown menus,
but I am not a novice.)  Apple intends their system to be used to build 
Macintosh applications.  If you want a conventional Smalltalk user-interface
than you can buy Parc Place System's interpreter for the Mac.

Parc Place System's interpreter is faster than Apple's.  PPS is in the
business of selling Smalltalk implementations, while Apple is in the
business of selling Macintoshes.  Thus, it is not surprising that PPS
concentrates on making faster interpreters and making a portable image
nicer, while Apple concentrates on making an image that is more compatible
with the Macintosh.