* Building Web apps with Smalltalk
In your quest to build better Web applications you’ve probably spent a lot of time analyzing how they work. And one thing that may have struck you is how easily an object-oriented language could encapsulate the flow of Web-based processes … which leads me to a language you may not have considered for Web development: Smalltalk.
Yet another Xerox PARC creation that escaped into the world at large in the 1980s, Smalltalk is arguably the definitive object-oriented language. And to make Web deployment easy, there’s even a Web application server specifically for Smalltalk – it is called the VisualWorks Application Server (see links below) and it’s published by Cincom.
VisualWorks Application Server is described by Cincom, which is a major player in the Smalltalk language and development tools business, as “a full-featured environment for creating and maintaining Web business applications.”
The VisualWorks Application Server offers three application frameworks:
* Static and dynamic HTML pages.
* Smalltalk Server pages (ASP Version 3.0 or JSP Version 1.1).
* Servlets (Smalltalk-based but closely following Java specification Version 2.2).
Additional server features include:
* Content management support, which includes associating domains with Web applications, performing URL aliasing, logical naming of application resources, and serverside includes.
* Security framework (HTTPS).
* NSAPI, ISAPI, FastCGI.
* XML support.
* Database connects (Oracle, SQL, ODBC).
* Server administration tools.
Smalltalk Web applications for the VisualWorks Application Server can be built either using the VisualWorks IDE or any other commercial Web design tools such as Macromedia Dreamweaver.
Very interesting stuff and the rave reviews I’ve read about development speed and robustness make this a solution worth checking out.
If you are developing Web applications using object-oriented systems please drop me a line and let me know your thoughts and successes.
