ECN No Name Newsletter: May, 1989

The ECN No Name Newsletter is no longer being published. This is an archived issue.

[previous article] [next article]

Coming Soon, Smalltalk-80

Dwight D. McKay

Thanks to a new licensing agreement entered into by the Purdue University Computing Center, all ECN Suns will soon have the Smalltalk-80 programming environment available for use on them.

Smalltalk-80 is an object-oriented programming language. Smalltalk programs consist of lists of messages to be passed to data "objects". These objects have associated "methods" (what "C" programmers might call functions) which interpret the message and produce a result. This arrangement provides for great modularity of program code. Methods are defined for whole groups or "classes" of objects such as integers, providing reusable code which is shared by all members of a class.

Smalltalk-80 is also a programming environment. The Smalltalk environment provides editors, browers, debuggers and file management utilities in a bitmapped display. Similar to Suntools or X11, the Smalltalk display provides numerous windows and display functions. The Smalltalk editor is context sensitive, aiding in program development. The Smalltalk debugger provides you with facilities to examine and modify running Smalltalk programs.

What is Smalltalk-80 used for? Smalltalk is often thought of as an excellent prototyping environment, allowing for the rapid creation of user interfaces for testing and experimentation. Smalltalk is also widely used in the area of artificial intelligence.

ECN will be installing Smalltalk over the next few weeks, one server at a time. Watch the _m_o_t_d on your machine for details.

SUN Software Ordering Instructions

Sun and independent software vendors are presenting this discounted price offer for a limited time period--ordering deadline is June 30, 1989. A copy of the necessary order form for this software is available from your site specialist.

* Discussions of an Engineering wide license for the SunWrite/Paint/Draw product are underway. Before purchasing this product, you may wish to check with your site specialist on the status of the discussions.

SUN Discount Prices

Application             Commercial      Educational     Purdue
Name                    Price           Price           Price
_
SunTrac                 2495                            500
*SunWrite/Paint/Draw    995                             250
Artisan
   Color                3250                            995
   Grayscale            1795                            695
   Monochrome           995                             395
Equation Editor         400             200             160
FrameMaker              2500            995             450
Publisher               3495            1195            956
SAS System              1005                            804


webmaster@ecn.purdue.edu
Last modified: Thursday, 30-Oct-97 17:16:23 EST

[HTML Check] HTML