Re: [Help-smalltalk] Hello list

[Paolo Bonzini]

> At the moment I'm a bit confused about images vs. files. I'm
> accustomed to work with files with my favorite texteditor in PHP and
> this works in Smalltalk, too. But what is the advantage of images?

I think this post

    http://gbracha.blogspot.com/2009/10/image-problem.html

shows the advantages and disadvantages of images pretty well.

In GNU Smalltalk, the image is used mostly as a cache of preloaded
packages.  It allows very fast startup because all the code is already
compiled and converted to objects (instances of Class, CompiledMethod,
etc.).  See also

    http://smalltalk.gnu.org/faq/37

which expands a bit on this topic.

> And to be honestly, the GNU Smalltalk documentation is not the best
> and clearly one...

What did you find confusing, exactly?

Paolo