The Unix Executable as a Smalltalk Method: And Its Implications for Unix-Smalltalk Unification

Abstract:

Unix and Smalltalk are very different in the details, but bear curious similarities in their broad outlines. Prior work has made these comparisons at a high level and sketched a path for retrofitting Smalltalk's advantages onto Unix (without compromising the advantages of the latter). Everybody seems to agree on identifying the Unix file with the Smalltalk object, but this still leaves much unspecified. I argue that we should identify the Unix executable with the Smalltalk method. A Smalltalk VM implementation via the filesystem falls out quite easily from this premise; however, the severe overhead associated with Unix processes casts doubt on its practical realisation. Nevertheless, we can see several ways around this problem. The connection shows promise for realising the benefits of Smalltalk within Unix without sequestering the former in a hermetically sealed image and VM.

BibTeX:

@inproceedings{jakubovic_unix_2025,
    title = {{The Unix Executable as a Smalltalk Method: And Its Implications for Unix-Smalltalk Unification}},
    author = {Jakubovic, Joel},
    year = {2025},
    booktitle = {{Proceedings of the 2025 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software}},
    publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
    series = {{Onward! '25}},
    location = {New York, NY, USA},
    doi = {10.1145/3759429.3762633},
    isbn = {979-8-4007-2151-9},
    pages = {227--242},
    url = {https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3759429.3762633},
    shorttitle = {The Unix Executable as a Smalltalk Method},
}

Proceedings paper