This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz by James Robertson. Original Post: A new Smalltalker asks Feed Title: Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/rssBlogView.xml Feed Description: James Robertson comments on Cincom Smalltalk, the Smalltalk development community, and IT trends and issues in general. Latest Agile Buzz Posts Latest Agile Buzz Posts by James Robertson Latest Posts From Cincom Smalltalk Blog - Smalltalk with Rants

What makes me wonder though: Are Smalltalkers really that much more productive. In contrast to C or C with a bad ide and without libraries maybe, but in contrast to a more modern language ? (Think about something like AS1 with additional runtime typechecking and a big library like java, probably a bad example :)) Can anyone provide some pointers ?

A large part of the productivity comes from consistency. In Smalltalk, everything is an object. No primitive data types, no special rules on certain types of methods - which means you spend more time focused on the actual problem, instead of on how to fight the system to allow you to solve the problem. Another big thing is extensibility. We can extend any class in Smalltalk - need a new method in String? Go ahead and add it. No need to start wrapping all your string references with a new class, and wondering how to get third party libraries to play ball. Blocks add some capabilities that neither Java nor any CLR language have as well. Anyone else have answers?