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Jtalk is an implementation of the Smalltalk language that runs on the JavaScript runtime.

Jtalk is an implementation of the Smalltalk language that runs on top of the JavaScript runtime. It is designed to make client-side development faster and easier.

Jtalk is written in itself, including the parser and compiler. Jtalk compiles into efficient JavaScript, mapping one-to-one with the equivalent JavaScript. There is no interpretation at runtime.

Try a right now!

Client-side usage

Load the full Jtalk Smalltalk environment in your page:

<script src="jtalk.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Or the runtime JavaScript file only (without the Smalltalk source or compiler):

<script src="jtalk-runtime.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Read the documentation to learn more about writing applications in Jtalk.

Download

You can get a copy of Jtalk from github or clone the git repository.

Documentation

1. Introduction

This documentation is a work in progress.

Jtalk is a young piece of code and evolves quickly. Some features are still incomplete and you may very well encounter bugs.

Jtalk is an implementation of the Smalltalk-80 language. It allows developers to write client-side heavy web applications in Smalltalk. Jtalk includes an integrated development environment with a class browser, workspace and transcript.

Jtalk includes the following features:

  1. It is semantically and syntaxically equivalent to Pharo Smalltalk (the implementation considered as the reference)
  2. It is written in itself and compiles into efficient JavaScript
  3. A canvas API similar to Seaside to generate HTML
  4. A jQuery binding

2. Differences with other Smalltalk implementations

3. The counter example

The following example is the traditional Seaside-like multi-counter application. The buttons at the bottom of each counter increase or decrease the counter.

Open a on the Counter class in the Canvas class category.

Each Jtalk widget is a subclass of Widget. A widget is a graphical component. The #renderOn: method is used to generate HTML using the HTML canvas.

4. The HTML canvas

5. Widgets

6. jQuery