StepTalk

StepTalk

Paradigm	Object-oriented
Family	Smalltalk
Designed by	Stefan Urbanek
First appeared	5 September 2005 (2005-09-05)
Final release	0.12 / 30 June 2006 (2006-06-30)
Typing discipline	Dynamic
Implementation language	Objective-C
Platform	GNUstep
OS	GNUstep
License	GPL
Influenced by
Smalltalk

StepTalk is the official GNUstep scripting language framework that represents separate scriptable servers or applications as a single object environment. It is meant to be independent of the programming language used. Its default language is Smalltalk running on an Objective-C runtime.

StepTalk was ported to Mac OS X.

Introduction

The goal of StepTalk is to provide an environment for gluing applications together and to provide a framework for communication between users and objects in the applications. Other major goals are:

• Simple and quick extensions of applications or tools
• Batch-processing of objects in applications or tools
• Fast prototyping of applications or new application features; play and tune a concept in a reactive interpreted environment

The default scripting language in StepTalk is Smalltalk. This is because Smalltalk is a very simple language and is easy to learn. There are just a few basic principles that a user must know to be able to use the language, and it is similar to a natural language. Smalltalk uses a similar approach to that of Objective-C, the language used in GNUstep.

Platforms

StepTalk works on any platform on which GNUstep works. Ports to native macOS Cocoa framework are being developed by various contributors.

See also

• AppleScript
• Object-oriented programming