Why run Smalltalk on the Java VM?
Smalltalk and Java both have their technical merits. Many of those found in Java trace their origins back to Smalltalk. Together, Smalltalk and the Java platform provide a powerful combination. From a certain point of view, their integration seems inevitable. • Smalltalk is a better modeling language than Java . Smalltalk is far more expressive and readable than Java . As I indicated in Using Natural Language in Software Development, Smalltalk provides a natural way to model the elements of natural language problem descriptions by directly supporting the linguistic metaphors we use in object-oriented software design. Thus, Smalltalk can provide superior traceability from the code back to the original requirements. • Smalltalk and Bistro have first-class metaclasses, while Java does not. Object-oriented designs often need metaprotocols for factory and registry methods. Object-oriented frameworks with metaprotocols often make polymorphic metaprotocols desirable. Java static methods suppo
