Smalltalk MT is an implementation of the Smalltalk

Smalltalk

Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human–computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist...

 programming language

Programming language

A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

 created in 1994 by Tarik Kerroum to deal with some of the shortcomings of Smalltalk-80 style of implementations. Smalltalk MT adopts a different approach in that the Smalltalk source is compiled

Compiler

A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...

 to machine code

Machine code

Machine code or machine language is a system of impartible instructions executed directly by a computer's central processing unit. Each instruction performs a very specific task, typically either an operation on a unit of data Machine code or machine language is a system of impartible instructions...

 before being executed.

This allows the developer the freedom of working with compiled code without the need for the traditional compile-link-run cycle. This is like a specialized form of incremental or dynamic compilation

Dynamic compilation

Dynamic compilation is a process used by some programming language implementations to gain performance during program execution. Although the technique originated in the Self programming language, the best-known language that uses this technique is Java...

.

Smalltalk MT directly interfaces to DLL

Dynamic-link library

Dynamic-link library , or DLL, is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems...

s in exactly the same manner as C

C (programming language)

C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

which allows DLL calls to be tested directly in a Workspace, which allows a scripting style of approach to accessing any DLL based code.

For example, one could write in a Workspace the following:

a := 'abc'.
WINAPI _strrev: a.
a inspect.

The WINAPI call directly calls the DLL function _strrev natively passing parameters from the Smalltalk environment to the C environment and back.

Smalltalk MT has a close integration with COM objects and fully compiled COM components can be created that operate in exactly the same way as C/C++ COM objects.

In 1998 David Anderson teamed up with Tarik Kerroum to advance Smalltalk MT into the high performance and graphics areas.