VisualWorks - Benefits and Drawbacks

Benefits and Drawbacks

Visualworks allows for very fast application development, as individual methods can be compiled even while the program to be developed is runnining. Compiling a smalltalk method typically takes about a second, while doing the same for a C++ project often takes a minute or more. Also, the various code browsers of Visualworks help the developer to quickly locate a class or method of interest.

Execution performance in terms of CPU time and memory consumption of Smalltalk programs is generally not as good as that of statically typed and binary-compiled languages such as C++, Fortran, Pascal or Ada. See the Language Shootout. Also, the Smalltalk-inherent Garbage Collection makes Smalltalk not suitable for applications with hard realtime requirements, as the garbage collection process can start any time and will block execution for (typically) between a second and ten seconds.