Newsgroups: comp.lang.smalltalk
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From: knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan Knight)
Subject: Re: Smalltalk bloat (was: Fast Compilation Techniques)
Message-ID: <knight.794253279@tina.mrco.carleton.ca>
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Reply-To: knight@mrco.carleton.ca (Alan Knight)
Organization: Carleton University
References: <3j257n$nt2@bs33n.staffs.ac.uk> <3j34jj$3fr@bee.uspnet.usp.br> <3j5npb$jpa@msunews.cl.msu.edu>
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 1995 17:54:39 GMT
Lines: 27

In <3j5npb$jpa@msunews.cl.msu.edu> dunham@cl-next4.cl.msu.edu (Steve Dunham) writes:

>This is why I don't use Smalltalk anymore.  I learned Smalltalk with
>Smalltalk/V 1.3 on a PC-clone.  It ran well in 1MB of RAM.  Now I find
>that I can't find a Smalltalk that will run on my Linux box with a
>`mere' 12MB of RAM.
...
>Does anyone have an explanation for the bloat of modern Smalltalk
>systems (which IMHO makes them useless for writing real applications).

It's just part of the regular bloat of all systems. My current
word-processor wouldn't fit on the hard drive, let alone in the memory
of my old PC-clone. That's an application, not a development system.
Take your 12MB machine, add Linux and X-Windows and you don't have all
that much room to work with for a development environment. Does
anything but Smalltalk/X run on Linux?

By the way, I think "ran well" is probably an overstatement for V/DOS,
at least as far as "writing real applications" goes. It was missing a
lot of features, and most end-users would probably find the musical
swapping interludes unacceptable. V/286 was an enormous improvement
and very much faster.
-- 
 Alan Knight                | The Object People
 knight@acm.org             | Smalltalk and OO Training and Consulting
 alan_knight@mindlink.bc.ca | 509-885 Meadowlands Dr.
 +1 613 225 8812            | Ottawa, Canada, K2C 3N2
