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Comment by flavio81 | Hacker News Reader

Smalltalk's image file(s) contain only the compiled code, not the original source code, which is on the changes and source files. You could decompile the image and get most of the source but not in its original, complete form.

If your image crashes it gets reconstructed from those two files.

It would be great if you Smalltalk fans would explain its source handling in these terms above, instead of promoting "image based" as some sort of magic where there aren't any text files, because in this forum some programmers are getting (needlessly) scared about the image-based system and (needlessly) fearing it.

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I'm sorry but you are really completely missing the point. You are conflating how Smalltalk is implemented under the hood (using files) with how Smalltalk is used for programming (using the image). Under the hood, Smalltalk has to adapt to the host platform, whether that be Windows, macOS, or Linux. In the original Smalltalk implementation over four decades ago, Smalltalk was the host platform (or operating system), so there were no files for source code.

Correct - and the only time someone would directly interact with the .changes or .sources text files (as-text-files without using the IDE), is in the unlikely event that the image file had become corrupted in some way, and they were trying to recover work that had been done.

The .changes and .sources text files are maintained in-the-background by the IDE and kept in-sync with the image file.

Correct, and not remotely the point being made. Just stop, seriously, you don't know what you're talking about.

You only threw attacks and condescending comments instead of explaining Smalltalk's IDE way of keeping files, which I did. You are doing a disservice to the Smalltalk community with such an attitude.

> You're misunderstanding Smalltalk, probably because of hype mongers like the author of this article.

With that comment, you lost any good will I had for you. Despite that, I tried to explain to you anyway what we mean by file based and you simply ignored it and chose to argue with me about st files being plain text which is entirely irrelevant to the conversation. What more do you want? You're wrong, Smalltalk isn't file based, but you don't seem to know what Smalltalk'ers mean by that term, and you refuse to admit you're wrong despite you not even being a Smalltalker. That's willful ignorance, I have no patience for willful ignorance nor do I have any duty to the Smalltalk community, something I know vastly more about than you as I've been a member of it for a very very long time.

Correct. iirc some Lispers also have such an attitude ;-)

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