NetworkedSmalltalk

Quora Answer : What are some suggestions for Smalltalk semantics in networked applications?

Oct 29, 2017

My intuition is "when in doubt, steal".

In other words find out how other systems seem to be doing this, and if they look reasonably successful, borrow theirs.

It could be that Go already has a standard for this. (I have no idea) In which case, the natural thing to do is borrow that.

Distributed Erlang might be another source of inspiration.

CroquetOperatingSystem may also have answered this in a Smalltalk context.

One of the big questions you have to decide on is whether different Smalltalk instances should be automatically open to each other, closed without special whitelisted permissions, or able to put up an API "facade". Which accepts messages, perhaps mapped to "virtual" objects while hiding which objects and classes actually handle messages.

The first of these might be the most "pure" and in the spirit of Smalltalk, but makes the systems too much of a security risk to be practical.

The second might be most practical but seems like it's going to be impractical to set permissions for every object / method. How the hell do you give a comprehensive description?

The third is probably most practical, but least "Smalltalkish". Basically it's equivalent of setting up the routes in a web-framework like Rails. Python's Zope started as an "object publishing environment". So there may be lessons there about making certain objects visible to the outside world.