| Well, I agree that the article can annoy some people. But... as an avid Smalltalker with a LOT of experience with it - and a lot of experience with Javascript too (and tons of other languages) - there is a "truth" in here. Smalltalk is immensely cleaner and gives you IMHO a much deeper more gratifying experience working in it. Yes, it's OO all the way, while Javascript is... well, not sure what to call it these days ;) A hodgepodge perhaps. But the real magic in Smalltalk is in the live environment. It all boils down to the Right Tool for the Right Job. If you are looking for a really powerful tool for abstraction and working interactively with advanced domain models, often using meta capabilities - then Smalltalk totally rocks. The more advanced, the more it shines. But of course Smalltalk has its negative sides too, and it depends on your specific use case. It's (if we consider the Cog VM which is the most common one) pretty fast, but comes short of V8. It can interoperate with other languages, but it's not as easy as in some other languages. It has a decent community, but not as large as Javascript/Python/Ruby. And so on. But when your use case fits - it's really good. So my advice is learn many languages, it will make you a better developer, and its fun! <promotion>Personally I am trying to evolve Smalltalk by merging it with ideas from Lisp, JavaScript and Rebol: sprylang.org</promotion> |