Cincom Smalltalk Wins Dynamic Language Shootout Competition

Cincom Smalltalk Wins Dynamic Language Shootout Competition


Proves Superior to Ruby, Python, Perl and Other Dynamic Programming Languages

Cincinnati, Ohio - A software application built on Cincom Smalltalk won the 2008 Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) Dynamic Language Shootout competition, held in Munich, Germany. Sigs-Datacom, in conjunction with the German magazine JavaSPEKTRUM, organized the contest for the OOP 2008 conference.

Cincom Smalltalk is a software programming language that enables developers to build software applications quickly and efficiently. The OOP is one of the most well--established IT conferences in the European software community with a history dating back seventeen years. The conference addresses the whole spectrum of software-development topics including information on the latest trends and applications.

The Shootout Challenge
Participants were challenged to program a Scrabble-like game using standard technology of the chosen platform. Programmers that participated used the dynamic programming languages Ruby, Python, Perl, Groovy, Scheme, Lisp and others. Criteria for the winning software application included accuracy, size, clarity and elegance.

The Winner
Thorsten Seitz, the winner, used Cincom Smalltalk VisualWorks 7.5, the Smalltalk toolset for building instantly portable server, web-based and client-server applications; and Seaside 2.8 for his winning application.

Selected for Quality, Speed, Elegance
The winning application was selected for its algorithmic quality, speed, relatively small size and visual elegance of the Seaside-based user-interface. Competition judges shared the opinion that Thorsten’s Smalltalk-based submission won with an impressive distance ahead of second place, a Ruby application. Smalltalk programmers typically solve a given problem faster and write one-half to one-third of the code produced by programmers using other languages.