The Digital Press

Smalltalk profoundly influenced Ruby's object model, emphasizing everything as an object and late method evaluation, though its unique syntax and environment differ greatly from Ruby's more familiar style. Smalltalk's integrated development environment and live coding experience offered a revolutionary but ultimately niche approach that struggled to integrate with the growing Unix ecosystem.

Why it matters: Smalltalk introduced a pure object-oriented model and live programming environment that shaped modern languages like Ruby.

The big picture: Smalltalk acted as both language and OS, enabling fluid live coding but faced challenges integrating with Unix's modular philosophy.

The stakes: Smalltalk’s image-based system complicates collaboration, reproducibility, and deployment compared to text-file and version-control-based workflows.

Commenters say: Enthusiasts highlight Smalltalk’s powerful live environment, image immortality, and elegant object model, while others note its syntax drawbacks and challenges adapting to modern development practices.