Smalltalk is a purely object oriented programming language (OOP) that was originally created in the 1970s for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning , but later found use in business. It was created at Xerox PARC by Learning Research Group (LRG) scientists, including Alan Kay , Dan Ingalls , Adele Goldberg , Ted Kaehler , Diana Merry , and Scott Wallace.
119-608: In Smalltalk, executing programs are built of opaque, atomic, so-called objects, which are instances of template code stored in classes. These objects intercommunicate by passing of messages, via an intermediary virtual machine environment (VM). A relatively small number of objects, called primitives, are not amenable to live redefinition, sometimes being defined independently of the Smalltalk programming environment. Having undergone significant industry development toward other uses, including business and database functions, Smalltalk
238-522: A Simula -like class inheritance model of execution), Smalltalk-76 was created. This system had a development environment featuring most of the now familiar tools, including a class library code browser/editor. Smalltalk-80 added metaclasses , to help maintain the "everything is an object" (except variables) paradigm by associating properties and behavior with individual classes, and even primitives such as integer and Boolean values (for example, to support different ways to create instances). Smalltalk-80
357-468: A high-level programming language (compared to the low-level ISA abstraction of the system VM). Process VMs are implemented using an interpreter ; performance comparable to compiled programming languages can be achieved by the use of just-in-time compilation . This type of VM has become popular with the Java programming language , which is implemented using the Java virtual machine . Other examples include
476-418: A high-level programming language (compared to the low-level ISA abstraction of the system VM). Process VMs are implemented using an interpreter ; performance comparable to compiled programming languages can be achieved by the use of just-in-time compilation . This type of VM has become popular with the Java programming language , which is implemented using the Java virtual machine . Other examples include
595-412: A string literal . For example: If the sequence does not include whitespace or punctuation characters, this can also be written as: Arrays: defines an array of four integers. defines a seven element array whose first element is a literal array, second element a byte array, third element the string 'four', and so on. Many implementations support the following literal syntax for ByteArrays: defines
714-683: A virtual machine ( VM ) is the virtualization or emulation of a computer system . Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardware, software, or a combination of the two. Virtual machines differ and are organized by their function, shown here: Some virtual machine emulators, such as QEMU and video game console emulators , are designed to also emulate (or "virtually imitate") different system architectures, thus allowing execution of software applications and operating systems written for another CPU or architecture. OS-level virtualization allows
833-410: A ByteArray of four integers. And last but not least, blocks ( anonymous function literals) Virtual machine In computing , a virtual machine ( VM ) is the virtualization or emulation of a computer system . Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardware, software, or
952-462: A class's method dictionary. The part of the class hierarchy that defines classes can add new classes to the system. The system is extended by running Smalltalk-80 code that creates or defines classes and methods. In this way a Smalltalk-80 system is a "living" system, carrying around the ability to extend itself at run time. One can even extend the compiler at run-time; indeed this is how the Compiler
1071-461: A code snippet by Ralph Johnson , demonstrating all the basic standard syntactic elements of methods: The following examples illustrate the most common objects which can be written as literal values in Smalltalk-80 methods. Numbers. The following list illustrates some of the possibilities. The last two entries are a binary and a hexadecimal number, respectively. The number before the 'r' is
1190-414: A combination of the two. Virtual machines differ and are organized by their function, shown here: Some virtual machine emulators, such as QEMU and video game console emulators , are designed to also emulate (or "virtually imitate") different system architectures, thus allowing execution of software applications and operating systems written for another CPU or architecture. OS-level virtualization allows
1309-467: A larger program of Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) funded research that in many ways defined the modern world of computing. In addition to Smalltalk, working prototypes of things such as hypertext , GUIs, multimedia , the mouse, telepresence , and the Internet were developed by ARPA researchers in the 1960s. Alan Kay (one of the inventors of Smalltalk) also described a tablet computer he named
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#17327722068571428-478: A nested guest virtual machine does not need to be homogeneous with its host virtual machine; for example, application virtualization can be deployed within a virtual machine created by using hardware virtualization . Nested virtualization becomes more necessary as widespread operating systems gain built-in hypervisor functionality, which in a virtualized environment can be used only if the surrounding hypervisor supports nested virtualization; for example, Windows 7
1547-478: A nested guest virtual machine does not need to be homogeneous with its host virtual machine; for example, application virtualization can be deployed within a virtual machine created by using hardware virtualization . Nested virtualization becomes more necessary as widespread operating systems gain built-in hypervisor functionality, which in a virtualized environment can be used only if the surrounding hypervisor supports nested virtualization; for example, Windows 7
1666-431: A normal application inside a host OS and supports a single process. It is created when that process is started and destroyed when it exits. Its purpose is to provide a platform -independent programming environment that abstracts away details of the underlying hardware or operating system and allows a program to execute in the same way on any platform. A process VM provides a high-level abstraction – that of
1785-431: A normal application inside a host OS and supports a single process. It is created when that process is started and destroyed when it exits. Its purpose is to provide a platform -independent programming environment that abstracts away details of the underlying hardware or operating system and allows a program to execute in the same way on any platform. A process VM provides a high-level abstraction – that of
1904-648: A number of facilities such as distributed Smalltalk where messages are exchanged between multiple Smalltalk systems, database interfaces where objects are transparently faulted out of a database, promises , etc. The design of distributed Smalltalk influenced such systems as CORBA . Smalltalk-80 syntax is rather minimalist, based on only a handful of declarations and reserved words. In fact, only six "keywords" are reserved in Smalltalk: true , false , nil , self , super , and thisContext . These are properly termed pseudo-variables , identifiers that follow
2023-485: A particular architecture does not provide hardware support required for nested virtualization, various software techniques are employed to enable it. Over time, more architectures gain required hardware support; for example, since the Haswell microarchitecture (announced in 2013), Intel started to include VMCS shadowing as a technology that accelerates nested virtualization. Virtual machine In computing ,
2142-673: A popular approach to implementing early microcomputer software, including Tiny BASIC and adventure games, from one-off implementations such as Pyramid 2000 to a general-purpose engine like Infocom 's z-machine , which Graham Nelson argues is "possibly the most portable virtual machine ever created". Significant advances occurred in the implementation of Smalltalk -80, particularly the Deutsch/Schiffmann implementation which pushed just-in-time (JIT) compilation forward as an implementation approach that uses process virtual machine. Later notable Smalltalk VMs were VisualWorks ,
2261-604: A popular approach to implementing early microcomputer software, including Tiny BASIC and adventure games, from one-off implementations such as Pyramid 2000 to a general-purpose engine like Infocom 's z-machine , which Graham Nelson argues is "possibly the most portable virtual machine ever created". Significant advances occurred in the implementation of Smalltalk -80, particularly the Deutsch/Schiffmann implementation which pushed just-in-time (JIT) compilation forward as an implementation approach that uses process virtual machine. Later notable Smalltalk VMs were VisualWorks ,
2380-451: A specific programming language, but are embedded in an existing language; typically such a system provides bindings for several languages (e.g., C and Fortran ). Examples are Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) and Message Passing Interface (MPI). Both system virtual machines and process virtual machines date to the 1960s and remain areas of active development. System virtual machines grew out of time-sharing , as notably implemented in
2499-451: A specific programming language, but are embedded in an existing language; typically such a system provides bindings for several languages (e.g., C and Fortran ). Examples are Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) and Message Passing Interface (MPI). Both system virtual machines and process virtual machines date to the 1960s and remain areas of active development. System virtual machines grew out of time-sharing , as notably implemented in
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#17327722068572618-455: A spelling corrector. Each release consisted of a virtual image (platform-independent file with object definitions) and a virtual machine specification. ANSI Smalltalk has been the standard language reference since 1998. Two currently popular Smalltalk implementation variants are descendants of those original Smalltalk-80 images. Squeak is an open source implementation derived from Smalltalk-80 Version 1 by way of Apple Smalltalk. VisualWorks
2737-514: A string: Two equal strings (strings are equal if they contain all the same characters) can be different objects residing in different places in memory. In addition to strings, Smalltalk has a class of character sequence objects named Symbol. Symbols are guaranteed to be unique—there can be no two equal symbols which are different objects. Because of that, symbols are very cheap to compare and are often used for language artifacts such as message selectors (see below). Symbols are written as # followed by
2856-607: A system virtual machine can be considered a generalization of the concept of virtual memory that historically preceded it. IBM's CP/CMS , the first systems to allow full virtualization , implemented time sharing by providing each user with a single-user operating system, the Conversational Monitor System (CMS). Unlike virtual memory, a system virtual machine entitled the user to write privileged instructions in their code. This approach had certain advantages, such as adding input/output devices not allowed by
2975-524: A system virtual machine can be considered a generalization of the concept of virtual memory that historically preceded it. IBM's CP/CMS , the first systems to allow full virtualization , implemented time sharing by providing each user with a single-user operating system, the Conversational Monitor System (CMS). Unlike virtual memory, a system virtual machine entitled the user to write privileged instructions in their code. This approach had certain advantages, such as adding input/output devices not allowed by
3094-525: A toolkit for developing collaborative applications Croquet Project , and the Open Cobalt virtual world application. GNU Smalltalk is a free software implementation of a derivative of Smalltalk-80 from the GNU project. Pharo Smalltalk is a fork of Squeak oriented toward research and use in commercial environments. As of 2016, a significant development that has spread across all Smalltalk environments
3213-460: Is a structurally reflective system which structure is defined by Smalltalk-80 objects. The classes and methods that define the system are also objects and fully part of the system that they help define. The Smalltalk compiler, which is itself written in Smalltalk and exists alongside all the other code in the system, compiles textual source code into method objects, typically instances of CompiledMethod . These get added to classes by storing them in
3332-493: Is also used to implement the "guest" environments, and applications running in a given "guest" environment view it as a stand-alone system. The pioneer implementation was FreeBSD jails ; other examples include Docker , Solaris Containers , OpenVZ , Linux-VServer , LXC , AIX Workload Partitions , Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, and iCore Virtual Accounts. A snapshot is a state of a virtual machine, and generally its storage devices, at an exact point in time. A snapshot enables
3451-493: Is also used to implement the "guest" environments, and applications running in a given "guest" environment view it as a stand-alone system. The pioneer implementation was FreeBSD jails ; other examples include Docker , Solaris Containers , OpenVZ , Linux-VServer , LXC , AIX Workload Partitions , Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, and iCore Virtual Accounts. A snapshot is a state of a virtual machine, and generally its storage devices, at an exact point in time. A snapshot enables
3570-421: Is always private to that object. Other objects can query or change that state only by sending requests (messages) to the object to do so. Any message can be sent to any object: when a message is received, the receiver determines whether that message is appropriate. If the message is not understood by the object then the virtual machine sends the doesNotUnderstand: message with the original message as an argument, and
3689-463: Is an example of such snapshots. Restoring a snapshot consists of discarding or disregarding all overlay layers that are added after that snapshot, and directing all new changes to a new overlay. The snapshots described above can be moved to another host machine with its own hypervisor; when the VM is temporarily stopped, snapshotted, moved, and then resumed on the new host, this is known as migration. If
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3808-415: Is an example of such snapshots. Restoring a snapshot consists of discarding or disregarding all overlay layers that are added after that snapshot, and directing all new changes to a new overlay. The snapshots described above can be moved to another host machine with its own hypervisor; when the VM is temporarily stopped, snapshotted, moved, and then resumed on the new host, this is known as migration. If
3927-548: Is capable of running Windows XP applications inside a built-in virtual machine. Furthermore, moving already existing virtualized environments into a cloud, following the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) approach, is much more complicated if the destination IaaS platform does not support nested virtualization. The way nested virtualization can be implemented on a particular computer architecture depends on supported hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities. If
4046-485: Is capable of running Windows XP applications inside a built-in virtual machine. Furthermore, moving already existing virtualized environments into a cloud, following the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) approach, is much more complicated if the destination IaaS platform does not support nested virtualization. The way nested virtualization can be implemented on a particular computer architecture depends on supported hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities. If
4165-620: Is derived from Smalltalk-80 version 2 by way of Smalltalk-80 2.5 and ObjectWorks (both products of ParcPlace Systems, a Xerox PARC spin-off company formed to bring Smalltalk to the market). As an interesting link between generations, in 2001, Vassili Bykov implemented Hobbes, a virtual machine running Smalltalk-80 inside VisualWorks. ( Dan Ingalls later ported Hobbes to Squeak.) During the late 1980s to mid-1990s, Smalltalk environments, including support, training and add-ons, were sold by two competing organizations: ParcPlace Systems and Digitalk, both California based. ParcPlace Systems tended to focus on
4284-424: Is developed and maintained. Since the classes are objects, they can be asked questions such as "what methods do you implement?" or "what fields/slots/instance variables do you define?". So objects can easily be inspected, copied, (de) serialized and so on with generic code that applies to any object in the system. Smalltalk-80 also provides computational reflection, the ability to observe the computational state of
4403-574: Is implemented on top of the built-in constructs by the standard Smalltalk class library. (For performance reasons, implementations may recognize and treat as special some of those messages; however, this is only an optimization and is not coded into the language syntax.) The adage that "Smalltalk syntax fits on a postcard " may have originated in Alan Kay's original conception of the language, as related by him in practically every of tens or hundreds of public lectures, op. cit., or perhaps it could refer to
4522-534: Is implemented using this facility. One of the more interesting uses of this is in the Seaside web framework which relieves the programmer of dealing with the complexity of a Web Browser's back button by storing continuations for each edited page and switching between them as the user navigates a web site. Programming the web server using Seaside can then be done using a more conventional programming style. As with message sending Smalltalk-80 virtual machines optimize away
4641-678: Is still in use today. When first publicly released, Smalltalk-80 presented numerous foundational ideas for the nascent field of object-oriented programming (OOP). Since inception, the language provided interactive programming via an integrated development environment . This requires reflection and late binding in the language execution of code . Later development has led to at least one instance of Smalltalk execution environment which lacks such an integrated graphical user interface or front-end. Smalltalk-like languages are in active development and have gathered communities of users around them. American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Smalltalk
4760-641: Is summarized in the commonly heard phrase "In Smalltalk everything is an object", which may be more accurately expressed as "all values are objects", as variables are not. Since all values are objects, classes are also objects. Each class is an instance of the metaclass of that class. Metaclasses in turn are also objects, and are all instances of a class named Metaclass. Classes contain method dictionaries that map selectors (the equivalent of function procedure names in other languages) to method objects, objects that are executed to evaluate messages. Classes inherit from other classes, with either Object or ProtoObject at
4879-417: Is the increasing usage of two web frameworks, Seaside and AIDA/Web , to simplify the building of complex web applications. Seaside has seen considerable market interest with Cincom, Gemstone, and Instantiations incorporating and extending it. Smalltalk was one of many object-oriented programming languages based on Simula . Smalltalk is also one of the most influential programming languages. Virtually all of
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4998-486: Is the part of the system that implements the programming system itself, and developers can use the meta-model to do things like walk through, examine, and modify code in the running system, or find all the instances of a certain kind of structure (e.g., all instances of the Method class in the meta-model). Smalltalk-80 is a totally reflective system. Smalltalk-80 provides both structural and computational reflection. Smalltalk
5117-723: The CP-40 and SIMMON , which used full virtualization , and were early examples of hypervisors . The first widely available virtual machine architecture was the CP-67 /CMS (see History of CP/CMS for details). An important distinction was between using multiple virtual machines on one host system for time-sharing, as in M44/44X and CP-40, and using one virtual machine on a host system for prototyping, as in SIMMON. Emulators , with hardware emulation of earlier systems for compatibility, date back to
5236-513: The CP-40 and SIMMON , which used full virtualization , and were early examples of hypervisors . The first widely available virtual machine architecture was the CP-67 /CMS (see History of CP/CMS for details). An important distinction was between using multiple virtual machines on one host system for time-sharing, as in M44/44X and CP-40, and using one virtual machine on a host system for prototyping, as in SIMMON. Emulators , with hardware emulation of earlier systems for compatibility, date back to
5355-582: The Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS). Time-sharing allowed multiple users to use a computer concurrently : each program appeared to have full access to the machine, but only one program was executed at the time, with the system switching between programs in time slices, saving and restoring state each time. This evolved into virtual machines, notably via IBM's research systems: the M44/44X , which used partial virtualization , and
5474-444: The Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS). Time-sharing allowed multiple users to use a computer concurrently : each program appeared to have full access to the machine, but only one program was executed at the time, with the system switching between programs in time slices, saving and restoring state each time. This evolved into virtual machines, notably via IBM's research systems: the M44/44X , which used partial virtualization , and
5593-576: The Dynabook which resembles modern tablet computers like the iPad. Smalltalk environments were often the first to develop what are now common object-oriented software design patterns. One of the most popular is the model–view–controller (MVC) pattern for user interface design. The MVC pattern enables developers to have multiple consistent views of the same underlying data. It's ideal for software development environments, where there are various views (e.g., entity-relation, dataflow, object model, etc.) of
5712-554: The IBM System/360 in 1963, while the software emulation (then-called "simulation") predates it. Process virtual machines arose originally as abstract platforms for an intermediate language used as the intermediate representation of a program by a compiler ; early examples date to around 1964 with the META II compiler-writing system using it for both syntax description and target code generation. A notable 1966 example
5831-437: The IBM System/360 in 1963, while the software emulation (then-called "simulation") predates it. Process virtual machines arose originally as abstract platforms for an intermediate language used as the intermediate representation of a program by a compiler ; early examples date to around 1964 with the META II compiler-writing system using it for both syntax description and target code generation. A notable 1966 example
5950-547: The Parrot virtual machine and the .NET Framework , which runs on a VM called the Common Language Runtime . All of them can serve as an abstraction layer for any computer language. A special case of process VMs are systems that abstract over the communication mechanisms of a (potentially heterogeneous) computer cluster . Such a VM does not consist of a single process, but one process per physical machine in
6069-420: The Parrot virtual machine and the .NET Framework , which runs on a VM called the Common Language Runtime . All of them can serve as an abstraction layer for any computer language. A special case of process VMs are systems that abstract over the communication mechanisms of a (potentially heterogeneous) computer cluster . Such a VM does not consist of a single process, but one process per physical machine in
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#17327722068576188-592: The Squeak Virtual Machine , and Strongtalk . A related language that produced a lot of virtual machine innovation was the Self programming language, which pioneered adaptive optimization and generational garbage collection . These techniques proved commercially successful in 1999 in the HotSpot Java virtual machine. Other innovations include a register-based virtual machine, to better match
6307-408: The Squeak Virtual Machine , and Strongtalk . A related language that produced a lot of virtual machine innovation was the Self programming language, which pioneered adaptive optimization and generational garbage collection . These techniques proved commercially successful in 1999 in the HotSpot Java virtual machine. Other innovations include a register-based virtual machine, to better match
6426-401: The radix or base. The base does not have to be a power of two; for example 36rSMALLTALK is a valid number equal to 80738163270632 decimal. Characters are written by preceding them with a dollar sign: Strings are sequences of characters enclosed in single quotes: To include a quote in a string, escape it using a second quote: Double quotes do not need escaping, since single quotes delimit
6545-402: The 'host', and the virtual machine emulated on that machine is generally referred to as the 'guest'. A host can emulate several guests, each of which can emulate different operating systems and hardware platforms. The desire to run multiple operating systems was the initial motive for virtual machines, so as to allow time-sharing among several single-tasking operating systems. In some respects,
6664-402: The 'host', and the virtual machine emulated on that machine is generally referred to as the 'guest'. A host can emulate several guests, each of which can emulate different operating systems and hardware platforms. The desire to run multiple operating systems was the initial motive for virtual machines, so as to allow time-sharing among several single-tasking operating systems. In some respects,
6783-526: The Digitalk products initially tried to reach a wider audience with a lower price. IBM initially supported the Digitalk product, but then entered the market with a Smalltalk product in 1995 named VisualAge/Smalltalk. Easel introduced Enfin at this time on Windows and OS/2. Enfin became far more popular in Europe, as IBM introduced it into IT shops before their development of IBM Smalltalk (later VisualAge). Enfin
6902-643: The IBM CP-40 and CP-67 , predecessors of the VM family. Examples outside the mainframe field include Parallels Workstation , Parallels Desktop for Mac , VirtualBox , Virtual Iron , Oracle VM , Virtual PC , Virtual Server , Hyper-V , VMware Fusion , VMware Workstation , VMware Server (discontinued, formerly called GSX Server), VMware ESXi , QEMU , Adeos , Mac-on-Linux, Win4BSD, Win4Lin Pro , and Egenera vBlade technology. In hardware-assisted virtualization,
7021-490: The IBM CP-40 and CP-67 , predecessors of the VM family. Examples outside the mainframe field include Parallels Workstation , Parallels Desktop for Mac , VirtualBox , Virtual Iron , Oracle VM , Virtual PC , Virtual Server , Hyper-V , VMware Fusion , VMware Workstation , VMware Server (discontinued, formerly called GSX Server), VMware ESXi , QEMU , Adeos , Mac-on-Linux, Win4BSD, Win4Lin Pro , and Egenera vBlade technology. In hardware-assisted virtualization,
7140-510: The Unix/Sun microsystems market, while Digitalk focused on Intel-based PCs running Microsoft Windows or IBM's OS/2. Both firms struggled to take Smalltalk mainstream due to Smalltalk's substantial memory needs, limited run-time performance, and initial lack of supported connectivity to SQL -based relational database servers. While the high price of ParcPlace Smalltalk limited its market penetration to mid-sized and large commercial organizations,
7259-445: The VM continues operation from the last-known coherent state, rather than the current state, based on whatever materials the backup server was last provided with. Nested virtualization refers to the ability of running a virtual machine within another, having this general concept extendable to an arbitrary depth. In other words, nested virtualization refers to running one or more hypervisors inside another hypervisor. The nature of
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#17327722068577378-445: The VM continues operation from the last-known coherent state, rather than the current state, based on whatever materials the backup server was last provided with. Nested virtualization refers to the ability of running a virtual machine within another, having this general concept extendable to an arbitrary depth. In other words, nested virtualization refers to running one or more hypervisors inside another hypervisor. The nature of
7497-457: The VM for a location on its physical disk are transparently translated into an operation on the corresponding file. Once such a translation layer is present, however, it is possible to intercept the operations and send them to different files, depending on various criteria. Every time a snapshot is taken, a new file is created, and used as an overlay for its predecessors. New data is written to the topmost overlay; reading existing data, however, needs
7616-457: The VM for a location on its physical disk are transparently translated into an operation on the corresponding file. Once such a translation layer is present, however, it is possible to intercept the operations and send them to different files, depending on various criteria. Every time a snapshot is taken, a new file is created, and used as an overlay for its predecessors. New data is written to the topmost overlay; reading existing data, however, needs
7735-700: The business. In 1999, Seagull Software acquired the ObjectShare Java development lab (including the original Smalltalk/V and Visual Smalltalk development team), and still owns VisualSmalltalk, although worldwide distribution rights for the Smalltalk product remained with ObjectShare who then sold them to Cincom . VisualWorks was sold to Cincom and is now part of Cincom Smalltalk. Cincom has backed Smalltalk strongly, releasing multiple new versions of VisualWorks and ObjectStudio each year since 1999. Cincom , GemTalk, and Instantiations, continue to sell Smalltalk environments. IBM ended VisualAge Smalltalk, having in
7854-770: The central concept in Smalltalk-80 (but not in Smalltalk-72) is that of an object . An object is always an instance of a class . Classes are "blueprints" that describe the properties and behavior of their instances. For example, a GUI's window class might declare that windows have properties such as the label, the position and whether the window is visible or not. The class might also declare that instances support operations such as opening, closing, moving and hiding. Each particular window object would have its own values of those properties, and each of them would be able to perform operations defined by its class. A Smalltalk object can do exactly three things: The state an object holds
7973-449: The cluster. They are designed to ease the task of programming concurrent applications by letting the programmer focus on algorithms rather than the communication mechanisms provided by the interconnect and the OS. They do not hide the fact that communication takes place, and as such do not attempt to present the cluster as a single machine. Unlike other process VMs, these systems do not provide
8092-401: The cluster. They are designed to ease the task of programming concurrent applications by letting the programmer focus on algorithms rather than the communication mechanisms provided by the interconnect and the OS. They do not hide the fact that communication takes place, and as such do not attempt to present the cluster as a single machine. Unlike other process VMs, these systems do not provide
8211-470: The default implementation of doesNotUnderstand: raises an exception that if not caught opens the system's debugger. Alan Kay has commented that despite the attention given to objects, messaging is the most important concept in Smalltalk: "The big idea is 'messaging'—that is what the kernel of Smalltalk/Squeak is all about (and it's something that was never quite completed in our Xerox PARC phase)." Unlike most other languages, Smalltalk code can be modified while
8330-411: The developmental stage, so it runs inside a sandbox . Virtual machines have other advantages for operating system development and may include improved debugging access and faster reboots. Multiple VMs running their own guest operating system are frequently engaged for server consolidation. A process VM, sometimes called an application virtual machine , or Managed Runtime Environment (MRE), runs as
8449-411: The developmental stage, so it runs inside a sandbox . Virtual machines have other advantages for operating system development and may include improved debugging access and faster reboots. Multiple VMs running their own guest operating system are frequently engaged for server consolidation. A process VM, sometimes called an application virtual machine , or Managed Runtime Environment (MRE), runs as
8568-601: The early versions. The first version, termed Smalltalk-71, was created by Kay in a few mornings on a bet that a programming language based on the idea of message passing inspired by Simula could be implemented in "a page of code". A later variant used for research work is now termed Smalltalk-72 and influenced the development of the Actor model . Its syntax and execution model were very different from modern Smalltalk variants. After significant revisions which froze some aspects of execution semantics to gain performance (by adopting
8687-423: The expensive use of contexts internally, providing the illusion and flexibility of a spaghetti stack without most its costs. Essentially context objects are created lazily as required, for example when a message is sent to the thisContext variable. An example of how Smalltalk can use reflection is the mechanism for handling errors. When an object is sent a message that it does not implement, the virtual machine sends
8806-436: The first being the sender of the former. In this way the stack is a linked list of context objects, and the debugger is essentially an inspector of this "spaghetti stack". By sending messages to thisContext a method activation can ask questions like "who sent this message to me". These facilities make it possible to implement coroutines or Prolog -like back-tracking without modifying the virtual machine. The exception system
8925-467: The first version to be made publicly available and created in 1980. The first hardware-environments which ran the Smalltalk VMs were Xerox Alto computers. Smalltalk was the product of research led by Alan Kay at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC); Alan Kay designed most of the early Smalltalk versions, Adele Goldberg wrote most of the documentation, and Dan Ingalls implemented most of
9044-931: The hardware provides architectural support that facilitates building a virtual machine monitor and allows guest OSes to be run in isolation. Hardware-assisted virtualization was first introduced on the IBM System/370 in 1972, for use with VM/370 , the first virtual machine operating system offered by IBM as an official product. In 2005 and 2006, Intel and AMD provided additional hardware to support virtualization. Sun Microsystems (now Oracle Corporation ) added similar features in their UltraSPARC T-Series processors in 2005. Examples of virtualization platforms adapted to such hardware include KVM , VMware Workstation , VMware Fusion , Hyper-V , Windows Virtual PC , Xen , Parallels Desktop for Mac , Oracle VM Server for SPARC , VirtualBox and Parallels Workstation . In 2006, first-generation 32- and 64-bit x86 hardware support
9163-867: The hardware provides architectural support that facilitates building a virtual machine monitor and allows guest OSes to be run in isolation. Hardware-assisted virtualization was first introduced on the IBM System/370 in 1972, for use with VM/370 , the first virtual machine operating system offered by IBM as an official product. In 2005 and 2006, Intel and AMD provided additional hardware to support virtualization. Sun Microsystems (now Oracle Corporation ) added similar features in their UltraSPARC T-Series processors in 2005. Examples of virtualization platforms adapted to such hardware include KVM , VMware Workstation , VMware Fusion , Hyper-V , Windows Virtual PC , Xen , Parallels Desktop for Mac , Oracle VM Server for SPARC , VirtualBox and Parallels Workstation . In 2006, first-generation 32- and 64-bit x86 hardware support
9282-646: The last two being vectors of bytes. Consequently Smalltalk can evaluate 52 factorial to produce 80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000. The transition from small to large integers is transparent to the programmer; variables do not require type declarations. This makes the system both concise and flexible. A programmer can change or extend (through subclassing ) the classes that implement what in other languages would be primitive values, so that new behavior can be defined for their instances—for example, to implement new control structures—or even so that their existing behavior will be changed. This fact
9401-532: The late 1990s decided to back Java instead and, as of 2005, is supported by Instantiations, Inc. Instantiations renamed the product VA Smalltalk (VAST Platform) and continue to release new versions yearly. The open Squeak implementation has an active community of developers, including many of the original Smalltalk community, and was used to provide the Etoys environment on the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project,
9520-411: The object the doesNotUnderstand: message with a reification of the message as an argument. The message (another object, an instance of Message ) contains the selector of the message and an Array of its arguments. In an interactive Smalltalk system the default implementation of doesNotUnderstand: is one that opens an error window (a Notifier) reporting the error to the user. Through this and
9639-473: The object-oriented languages that came after— Flavors , CLOS , Objective-C , Java , Python , Ruby , and many others—were influenced by Smalltalk. Smalltalk was also one of the most popular languages for agile software development methods, rapid application development (RAD) or prototyping, and software design patterns . The highly productive environment provided by Smalltalk platforms made them ideal for rapid, iterative development. Smalltalk emerged from
9758-416: The older snapshots are kept in sync regularly, this operation can be quite fast, and allow the VM to provide uninterrupted service while its prior physical host is, for example, taken down for physical maintenance. Similar to the migration mechanism described above, failover allows the VM to continue operations if the host fails. Generally it occurs if the migration has stopped working. However, in this case,
9877-416: The older snapshots are kept in sync regularly, this operation can be quite fast, and allow the VM to provide uninterrupted service while its prior physical host is, for example, taken down for physical maintenance. Similar to the migration mechanism described above, failover allows the VM to continue operations if the host fails. Generally it occurs if the migration has stopped working. However, in this case,
9996-486: The overlay hierarchy to be scanned, resulting in accessing the most recent version. Thus, the entire stack of snapshots is virtually a single coherent disk; in that sense, creating snapshots works similarly to the incremental backup technique. Other components of a virtual machine can also be included in a snapshot, such as the contents of its random-access memory (RAM), BIOS settings, or its configuration settings. " Save state " feature in video game console emulators
10115-486: The overlay hierarchy to be scanned, resulting in accessing the most recent version. Thus, the entire stack of snapshots is virtually a single coherent disk; in that sense, creating snapshots works similarly to the incremental backup technique. Other components of a virtual machine can also be included in a snapshot, such as the contents of its random-access memory (RAM), BIOS settings, or its configuration settings. " Save state " feature in video game console emulators
10234-468: The reflective facilities the user can examine the context in which the error occurred, redefine the offending code, and continue, all within the system, using Smalltalk-80's reflective facilities. By creating a class that understands (implements) only doesNotUnderstand:, one can create an instance that can intercept any message sent to it via its doesNotUnderstand: method. Such instances are called transparent proxies. Such proxies can then be used to implement
10353-421: The resources of a computer to be partitioned via the kernel . The terms are not universally interchangeable. A "virtual machine" was originally defined by Popek and Goldberg as "an efficient, isolated duplicate of a real computer machine." Current use includes virtual machines that have no direct correspondence to any real hardware. The physical, "real-world" hardware running the VM is generally referred to as
10472-421: The resources of a computer to be partitioned via the kernel . The terms are not universally interchangeable. A "virtual machine" was originally defined by Popek and Goldberg as "an efficient, isolated duplicate of a real computer machine." Current use includes virtual machines that have no direct correspondence to any real hardware. The physical, "real-world" hardware running the VM is generally referred to as
10591-410: The root of the class hierarchy. Sending a message to an object at the most abstract involves fetching the class of the receiver (the object being sent the message) and looking up the message's selector in the class's method dictionary, followed by the superclass and so on until the method is found or doesNotUnderstand is sent. Smalltalk virtual machines use various techniques to speed up message lookup so
10710-462: The rules for variable identifiers but denote bindings that a programmer cannot change. The true , false , and nil pseudo-variables are singleton instances. self and super refer to the receiver of a message within a method activated in response to that message, but sends to super are looked up in the superclass of the method's defining class rather than the class of the receiver, which allows methods in subclasses to invoke methods of
10829-440: The same computer (e.g., Windows , Linux , or prior versions of an operating system) to support future software. The use of virtual machines to support separate guest operating systems is popular in regard to embedded systems . A typical use would be to run a real-time operating system simultaneously with a preferred complex operating system, such as Linux or Windows. Another use would be for novel and unproven software still in
10948-440: The same computer (e.g., Windows , Linux , or prior versions of an operating system) to support future software. The use of virtual machines to support separate guest operating systems is popular in regard to embedded systems . A typical use would be to run a real-time operating system simultaneously with a preferred complex operating system, such as Linux or Windows. Another use would be for novel and unproven software still in
11067-473: The same name in superclasses. thisContext refers to the current activation record. The only built-in language constructs are message sends, assignment, method return and literal syntax for some objects. From its origins as a language for children of all ages, standard Smalltalk syntax uses punctuation in a manner more like English than mainstream coding languages. The remainder of the language, including control structures for conditional evaluation and iteration,
11186-453: The same physical page by a technique termed kernel same-page merging (KSM). This is especially useful for read-only pages, such as those holding code segments, which is the case for multiple virtual machines running the same or similar software, software libraries, web servers, middleware components, etc. The guest operating systems do not need to be compliant with the host hardware, thus making it possible to run different operating systems on
11305-453: The same physical page by a technique termed kernel same-page merging (KSM). This is especially useful for read-only pages, such as those holding code segments, which is the case for multiple virtual machines running the same or similar software, software libraries, web servers, middleware components, etc. The guest operating systems do not need to be compliant with the host hardware, thus making it possible to run different operating systems on
11424-567: The same underlying specification. Also, for simulations or games where the underlying model may be viewed from various angles and levels of abstraction. In addition to the MVC pattern, the Smalltalk language and environment were influential in the history of the graphical user interface (GUI) and the what you see is what you get ( WYSIWYG ) user interface, font editors, and desktop metaphors for UI design. The powerful built-in debugging and object inspection tools that came with Smalltalk environments set
11543-406: The sense that they are instances of corresponding classes, and operations on them are invoked by sending messages. For efficiency and generality integers are implemented by four classes, Integer, the abstract superclass of all integers, SmallInteger, whose instances fit in a machine word, for example having a 61-bit signed range in a 64-bit implementation, LargePositiveInteger and LargeNegativeInteger,
11662-447: The standard for all the integrated development environments , starting with Lisp Machine environments, that came after. Smalltalk uses several commands that rhyme with the "-ect" suffix. This was inspired by a line from the 1967 Arlo Guthrie monologue " Alice's Restaurant Massacree ," in which Guthrie underwent a battery of being "injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected." As in other object-oriented languages,
11781-415: The standard system. As technology evolves virtual memory for purposes of virtualization, new systems of memory overcommitment may be applied to manage memory sharing among multiple virtual machines on one computer operating system. It may be possible to share memory pages that have identical contents among multiple virtual machines that run on the same physical machine, what may result in mapping them to
11900-415: The standard system. As technology evolves virtual memory for purposes of virtualization, new systems of memory overcommitment may be applied to manage memory sharing among multiple virtual machines on one computer operating system. It may be possible to share memory pages that have identical contents among multiple virtual machines that run on the same physical machine, what may result in mapping them to
12019-502: The system is running. Live coding and applying fixes 'on-the-fly' is a dominant programming methodology for Smalltalk and is one of the main reasons for its productivity. Smalltalk is a "pure" object-oriented programming language, meaning that, unlike C++ and Java , there are no primitive types. All values are represented as objects and computation on integers uses message sending just like any other object. In Smalltalk, types such as integers, Booleans and characters are also objects, in
12138-464: The system provides both a simple consistent message binding mechanism and good efficiency. Code blocks —Smalltalk's way of expressing anonymous functions —are also objects. They have a very lightweight syntax and are used throughout the system to implement control structures, especially for the Collection hierarchy. Reflection is a feature of having a meta-model as Smalltalk does. The meta-model
12257-410: The system. In languages derived from the original Smalltalk-80 the current activation of a method is accessible as an object named via a pseudo-variable (one of the six reserved words), thisContext , which corresponds to a stack frame in conventional language implementations, and is called a "context". Sending a message is done within some context, and to evaluate the message another context is created,
12376-520: The underlying hardware, rather than a stack-based virtual machine, which is a closer match for the programming language; in 1995, this was pioneered by the Dis virtual machine for the Limbo language. In full virtualization, the virtual machine simulates enough hardware to allow an unmodified "guest" OS (one designed for the same instruction set ) to be run in isolation. This approach was pioneered in 1966 with
12495-421: The underlying hardware, rather than a stack-based virtual machine, which is a closer match for the programming language; in 1995, this was pioneered by the Dis virtual machine for the Limbo language. In full virtualization, the virtual machine simulates enough hardware to allow an unmodified "guest" OS (one designed for the same instruction set ) to be run in isolation. This approach was pioneered in 1966 with
12614-429: The virtual machine's state at the time of the snapshot to be restored later, effectively undoing any changes that occurred afterwards. This capability is useful as a backup technique, for example, prior to performing a risky operation. Virtual machines frequently use virtual disks for their storage; in a very simple example, a 10- gigabyte hard disk drive is simulated with a 10-gigabyte flat file . Any requests by
12733-429: The virtual machine's state at the time of the snapshot to be restored later, effectively undoing any changes that occurred afterwards. This capability is useful as a backup technique, for example, prior to performing a risky operation. Virtual machines frequently use virtual disks for their storage; in a very simple example, a 10- gigabyte hard disk drive is simulated with a 10-gigabyte flat file . Any requests by
12852-660: The virtual machine, notably in UCSD Pascal (1978); this influenced later interpreters, notably the Java virtual machine (JVM). Another early example was SNOBOL4 (1967), which was written in the SNOBOL Implementation Language (SIL), an assembly language for a virtual machine, which was then targeted to physical machines by transpiling to their native assembler via a macro assembler . Macros have since fallen out of favor, however, so this approach has been less influential. Process virtual machines were
12971-516: The virtual machine, notably in UCSD Pascal (1978); this influenced later interpreters, notably the Java virtual machine (JVM). Another early example was SNOBOL4 (1967), which was written in the SNOBOL Implementation Language (SIL), an assembly language for a virtual machine, which was then targeted to physical machines by transpiling to their native assembler via a macro assembler . Macros have since fallen out of favor, however, so this approach has been less influential. Process virtual machines were
13090-427: Was found to rarely offer performance advantages over software virtualization. In OS-level virtualization, a physical server is virtualized at the operating system level, enabling multiple isolated and secure virtualized servers to run on a single physical server. The "guest" operating system environments share the same running instance of the operating system as the host system. Thus, the same operating system kernel
13209-427: Was found to rarely offer performance advantages over software virtualization. In OS-level virtualization, a physical server is virtualized at the operating system level, enabling multiple isolated and secure virtualized servers to run on a single physical server. The "guest" operating system environments share the same running instance of the operating system as the host system. Thus, the same operating system kernel
13328-517: Was in November 1981. Xerox only distributed Version 1 to Apple, DEC, HP, and Tektronix, but these companies were allowed unrestricted redistribution via any system they built. This encouraged the wide spread of Smalltalk. Later, in 1983, Xerox released Smalltalk-80 Version 2. This version was generally available to the public, although under a restrictive license. Versions 1 and 2 were fairly similar, although Version 2 did have some added features such as
13447-625: Was later acquired by Cincom Systems , and is now sold under the name ObjectStudio , and is part of the Cincom Smalltalk product suite. In 1995, ParcPlace and Digitalk merged into ParcPlace-Digitalk and then rebranded in 1997 as ObjectShare, located in Irvine, CA. ObjectShare ( NASDAQ : OBJS) was traded publicly until 1999, when it was delisted and dissolved. The merged firm never managed to find an effective response to Java as to market positioning, and by 1997 its owners were looking to sell
13566-479: Was popularized around 1970 by Pascal , notably in the Pascal-P system (1973) and Pascal-S compiler (1975), in which it was termed p-code and the resulting machine as a p-code machine . This has been influential, and virtual machines in this sense have been often generally called p-code machines. In addition to being an intermediate language, Pascal p-code was also executed directly by an interpreter implementing
13685-424: Was popularized around 1970 by Pascal , notably in the Pascal-P system (1973) and Pascal-S compiler (1975), in which it was termed p-code and the resulting machine as a p-code machine . This has been influential, and virtual machines in this sense have been often generally called p-code machines. In addition to being an intermediate language, Pascal p-code was also executed directly by an interpreter implementing
13804-509: Was ratified in 1998 and represents the standard version of Smalltalk. Smalltalk took second place for "most loved programming language" in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey in 2017, but it was not among the 26 most loved programming languages of the 2018 survey. There are a large number of Smalltalk variants. The unqualified word Smalltalk is often used to indicate the Smalltalk-80 language and compatible VM,
13923-548: Was the O-code machine , a virtual machine that executes O-code (object code) emitted by the front end of the BCPL compiler. This abstraction allowed the compiler to be easily ported to a new architecture by implementing a new back end that took the existing O-code and compiled it to machine code for the underlying physical machine. The Euler language used a similar design, with the intermediate language named P (portable). This
14042-446: Was the O-code machine , a virtual machine that executes O-code (object code) emitted by the front end of the BCPL compiler. This abstraction allowed the compiler to be easily ported to a new architecture by implementing a new back end that took the existing O-code and compiled it to machine code for the underlying physical machine. The Euler language used a similar design, with the intermediate language named P (portable). This
14161-479: Was the first language variant made available outside of PARC. In 1981, it was shared with Tektronix , Hewlett-Packard , Apple Computer , and DEC for review and debugging on their platforms. The August 1981 issue of Byte Magazine was devoted to Smalltalk-80 and brought its ideas to a large audience. Several books on Smalltalk-80 were also published. Smalltalk-80 became the basis for all future commercial versions of Smalltalk. The final release of Smalltalk-80 Version 1
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