Editing Strongtalk (section)

==History==
David Griswold wanted to use Smalltalk more extensively, but then-extant implementations were insufficient for his needs. He wanted to improve the performance, add type-checking, and use native [[graphical user interface]] (GUI) [[Widget (GUI)|widgets]].<ref>{{cite web 
| url= http://www.strongtalk.org/history.html 
| title= Strongtalk history
| work= Strongtalk.org
}}</ref> His efforts resulted in the 1993 paper he co-authored with [[Gilad Bracha]].<ref>{{cite book
| last1=Bracha |first1=Gilad |author-link1=Gilad Bracha |last2=Griswold |first2=David
|chapter=Strongtalk: Typechecking Smalltalk in a production environment | title= Proceedings of the eighth annual conference on Object-oriented programming systems, languages, and applications
| pages= 215–230
| year= 1993
|doi=10.1145/165854.165893 |isbn=0-89791-587-9 | chapter-url= http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/bracha93strongtalk.html
}}</ref> This version was based on adding type-checking to the [[PARC_(company)|ParcPlace Systems]] implementation of Smalltalk. However, an implementation begun from scratch could gain a better typing system.

He became interested in the improvements that the team for the language [[Self (programming language)|Self]] had achieved, and envisioned the same methods used to improve Smalltalk. [[Urs Hölzle]], who worked on the powerful Self compiler, spoke with Griswold about implementing the same ''type feedback'' in a Smalltalk compiler. Griswold, Hölzle, [[Lars Bak (computer programmer)|Lars Bak]], and others formed a small company (LongView Technologies, doing business as Animorphic Systems) to re-implement Strongtalk. Work began in 1994 and they completed an implementation in 1996. The firm was bought by [[Sun Microsystems]] in 1997, and the team got focused on [[Java (programming language)|Java]], releasing the [[HotSpot (virtual machine)|HotSpot]] virtual machine,<ref name="official">{{cite web 
| url= http://www.strongtalk.org/
| title= Strongtalk: A High-Performance Open Source Smalltalk With An Optional Type System
| access-date= 7 April 2011
}}</ref> and work on Strongtalk stalled.

Sun released the 1997 re-implementation of Strongtalk as [[open-source software]] under a ''revised'' [[BSD licenses|BSD license]], including the Strongtalk [[system image]] in 2002, and the [[virtual machine]] in 2006.  Strongtalk is touted as the fastest implementation of [[Smalltalk]].<ref name="official" /> Strongtalk is available for [[Windows XP]] (other [[porting|ports]] are in the works) and includes a basic development environment.