Are all Smalltalk implementations compatible?

Question

I'm newbie on Smalltalk. I'm going to try Seaside framework. And Pharo seems best suitable choice for this.

My plan is developing on Mac OS X, servicing on BSD. However, there is no BSD port of Pharo yet, but there are some other Smalltalk ports like Squeak. But I'm afraid of any kind of incompatibility. So I'm asking any kind of incompatibility which I should care about.

Answer 1

Smalltalk dialects are more or less compatible on syntax and basic features, while totally incopatible specially on GUI field. Order of compatibility would be:

• syntax: because of simplicity of Smalltalk syntax almost fully compatible,
• basic class library like Magnitudes/Numbers, Collections, Streams, ... quite compatible, comatibility enhanced with a Grease compatibility library,
• Times, Files, TCP Sockets - incopatible, but with Sport compatibility layer compatible
• FFI: incopatible, GSoC project on the way to ease differences
• Graphics, GUI: totaly incopatible, no compatibility project on the way