Digitalk Intro's Smalltalk for PM; First Fully Compiled Version
 
Microbytes Daily News Service
Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc.
Banking on 1990 to be the "year of object-oriented programming,"
Digitalk yesterday announced its new, OS/2 version of the
Smalltalk programming language. Smalltalk V/PM, the company says,
is designed to reduce the time it takes to prototype
user-interface-intensive software applications to run under OS/2
Presentation Manager. Digitalk officials emphasized that their
new environment provides the first fully compiled version of
Smalltalk.
 
Smalltalk/V PM, priced at $499.95 and running on 286- and
386-based PCs, gives you access to Presentation Manager features
such as Dynamic Data Exchange, which lets you "hot link" data
between applications, and Dynamic Link Libraries (DDL), which you
can call to when working within Smalltalk/V PM. Like its
object-oriented predecessors, Smalltalk/V PM offers such
capabilities as encapsulation (where data and the procedures that
access it are contained within the same "object") and the ability
to reuse code. You can construct user interfaces by "pointing and
clicking" rather than writing lines of code, and you can use
"browsers" to navigate through PM code and explore the operating
system's features.
 
As to the size of Smalltalk programs, Digitalk vice president Dan
Goldman said very small C programs (about 1K) could be as large
as 12K using Smalltalk "because there's so much Smalltalk code
added in there." But size differences decrease as the programs
grow larger, he said. For OS/2, Smalltalk and C programs would be
roughly the same size, Goldman said.
 
Smalltalk/V PM runs on a 286/386-based PC with OS/2
Presentation Manager 1.1 or later. A mouse is recommended.
 
Contact: Digitalk, 9841 Airport Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90045;
(800) 922-8255.
 
                              --- Jeffrey Bertolucci
 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
