Dolphin Smalltalk

www.object-arts.com

Dolphin Smalltalk offers a family of Windows-based Smalltalk products that includes a free or low-cost version. It's very Windows-oriented, allowing you to build GUIs with real Windows widgets, etc. It's nice, reasonably efficient, builds small images, and is small enough to make it less daunting than Visual Works. A choice worth considering if you're a Windows buff. (Editorializing by Ron Jeffries, not associated with Object Arts.)

You can be introduced to smalltalk via a free Community version


How funny. When I first saw the title of this page, I assumed the topic was the Smalltalk-80 system that ran on the old Xerox 1100 workstations, affectionately known as "Dolphins". The Dolphin was the third Xerox computer that ran a Smalltalk VM, after the Alto and the Dorado (also known as 1136). In the early and mid-1980s, Xerox actually sold Dolphins running Smalltalk (and applications written in Smalltalk) to several customers, making it the first commercial Smalltalk product platform. --Joshua Susser


Yes, we realized that when we were creating Dolphin. However, the name actually came from this little adage that I bandied about in-house during the development of the product:

"Dolphins have been around for quite a long while but it's only relatively recently that everyone has come to appreciate how brilliant they are. A bit like Smalltalk really.. " --Andy Bower


If dolphins really were brilliant, they would've invented Smalltalk. :)

What I love about Object Arts's marketing is that there are actually no dolphins in sight. Maybe you're supposed to be the dolphin, having fun with your brightly-coloured ball? It's an appalling thought...

Appalling, or appealing?


From what I heard and read, dolphins were terrestial animals a long time ago. Eventually, they must have gotten sick and tired of other terrestial creatures, acquired a taste for seafood, and decided to go back in the water. I love seafood, and think that might have been a very smart move! F Razo


March 2008 - Object Arts has finished major development of Dolphin. In particular, Object Arts will not be moving Dolphin from the now-"legacy" Win Thirty Two API to Microsoft Windows' new Dot Net platform. However the Professional Edition and the trial version remain available and supported. According to Bower, the demand for Dolphin Smalltalk is too small to make the major effort of a Dot Net port worthwhile for Object Arts.

(Object Arts had originally announced in 2007 that the commercial version would no longer be sold: www.object-arts.com But the announcement proved a Good Career Move: it produced an uptick of interest in Dolphin. Object Arts is willing to agree to a buyout of Dolphin or the sale of source licenses, but only for substantial amounts of money: www.object-arts.com )

See original on c2.com