# Seeking some of that old-time Smalltalk religion

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/seeking-some-of-that-old-time-smalltalk-religion/55634>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [March 22, 2006, 4:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/seeking-some-of-that-old-time-smalltalk-religion/55634 "2006-03-22T16:59:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![johnlester](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@johnlester](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/johnlester)\
**Post date:** [March 22, 2006, 4:59pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/seeking-some-of-that-old-time-smalltalk-religion/55634/1 "2006-03-22T16:59:36Z")

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I know there are some Smalltalk folks who hang out here, so I’d like to  
pose  
perhaps a fairly ignorant question:

How far away is irb from a Smalltalk development environment?

Put another way, what must need to be done to get to a Smalltalk  
development  
environment? Will being able to load / save image files get me closer  
(have  
folks done this by serializing the ObjectSpace tree to disk already)? Or  
am  
I just going to have to experience it for myself to get the gestalt of  
Smalltalk IDEs?

Thanks for any & all insight …  
-John

> **[John Lam's Blog](https://www.iunknown.com/)**
>
> Since 1997