Programmer's Reference


Industry-standard support

Unlike most Smalltalk class libraries that were developed in the absence of standards, IBM Smalltalk was developed based on existing industry software and hardware standards. The use of these standards is a major benefit to development teams because it means that Smalltalk developers can use the same terminology and application protocols used in other languages. This reduces the need for vendor-specific Smalltalk documentation and training for the base class libraries, window systems, file systems, and graphics and process models. It also leverages a corporation's investment in standards training and documentation.

IBM Smalltalk is based on the following industry standards:

The following table lists the subsystems and the standards upon which they are based.

Table 1. Industry Standards

IBM Smalltalk Subsystem Based on These Industry Standards
Common Language Data Types Smalltalk-80 Blue Book and IBM Red Book
Common Language Implementation Smalltalk-80 Blue Book and IBM Red Book
Common Process Model Smalltalk-80 Blue Book
Common File System POSIX.1 and Smalltalk-80 Blue Book
Common Graphics X Window System
Common Widgets OSF/Motif
Common Printing X Window System

Although not essential, familiarity with the above standard interfaces is helpful to understanding and using the IBM Smalltalk subsystems.


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