The Early History Of Smalltalk
📜 Abstract
This paper is a retrospective of the history of Smalltalk, one of the most influential object-oriented programming languages. The development of Smalltalk was driven by the desire to create an environment for learning and innovation. The insights gained from the development process and the evolution of the language are explored, along with the various influences that shaped its design and implementation.
✨ Summary
The paper “The Early History Of Smalltalk” by Alan C. Kay provides a comprehensive retrospective on the development of the Smalltalk programming language, which was pivotal in the evolution of object-oriented programming (OOP). It details the motivations behind the language’s creation, primarily to serve as a powerful educational tool and environment for innovation. Smalltalk’s development introduced groundbreaking concepts such as a fully integrated development environment, powerful graphics and interface design capabilities, and the use of virtual machines, which have influenced modern software engineering practices.
Alan Kay’s work and the Smalltalk language have profoundly impacted computing, laying the groundwork for future OOP languages and concepts, including Java, Python, and C#. A quick search reveals that this paper and Smalltalk have been acknowledged in subsequent research and popular software design principles:
- DiPaola, S. (2009). “Exploring a multi-artist and multi-contributor online evolutionary artwork inside Second Life.” Leonardo, 42(1), 94-95. Link
- Ingalls, D., Kaehler, T., Maloney, J., Wallace, S., & Kay, A. (1997). “Back to the Future: The Story of Squeak, A Practical Smalltalk Written in Itself.” ACM SIGPLAN Notices. DOI
- Goldberg, A., & Robson, D. (1983). “Smalltalk-80: the language and its implementation.” Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc.
The paper is a valuable historical document and continues to be a reference for both academic research and educational purposes in computer science.