BTW another brilliant innovation of Smalltalk was incremental compilation.
Actually, Smalltalk compilation to bytecodes isn't incremental, from a certain point of view. The compiler finishes completely with bytecodes, usually instantly from the POV of the programmer. The compilation is complete. However, the binding is late. (Usually termed "late binding." You see, usually only one method has to be compiled at any given time.)
If the VM is a JIT VM, then there's another compilation step to machine code. Arguably, one could term this "incremental compilation" as well. It fits the colloquial definition of "incremental."
Another weird way one could term the features of Smalltalk, is the argument that it's a strongly typed language. Yes, that's right. It's just that the only type is Object. The differing of behaviors of instances of different classes is just runtime magic. (Late binding again.)
the key feature i like here is that code can be changed and recompiled while an application is running.
when an error occurs, the application does not crash but freezes allowing me to fix the error and resume.
to the point that when the aplication is a website and an error occurs while a browser is accessing it, the loading of the page just stalls until the error is fixed, at which point it resumes without any user intervention from the browser side.
Actually, Smalltalk compilation to bytecodes isn't incremental, from a certain point of view. The compiler finishes completely with bytecodes, usually instantly from the POV of the programmer. The compilation is complete. However, the binding is late. (Usually termed "late binding." You see, usually only one method has to be compiled at any given time.)
If the VM is a JIT VM, then there's another compilation step to machine code. Arguably, one could term this "incremental compilation" as well. It fits the colloquial definition of "incremental."
Another weird way one could term the features of Smalltalk, is the argument that it's a strongly typed language. Yes, that's right. It's just that the only type is Object. The differing of behaviors of instances of different classes is just runtime magic. (Late binding again.)