Smalltalk web framework Seaside reaches version 3.0

The developers of the Seaside web framework for Smalltalk have announced version 3.0. What had originally begun as development work for a 2.9 version turned out to be such a significant change that the developers say it justified relabelling the release a 3.0. They believe Seaside 3.0 to be a "solid foundation for the foreseeable development" of the Smalltalk web framework.

Seaside offers a framework for creating and processing forms, fields and anchors which are transparently bound to variables and code in an application. It also gives developers a simple session management model with the ability to live update running servers to fix bugs and eliminate the edit-compile-run cycle.

The new version should be familiar to Seaside 2.8 users, but in 3.0 a major re-factoring has simplified the frameworks classes, allowing it to be more modular. The framework now relies less on strings to represent key data; a URL is now represented by a URL object rather than a string. With the re-factoring, the developers feel they have made the Seaside framework easier to understand, giving it clear boundaries between the various layers.

Other improvements include better test coverage (with the number of tests rising from 200 to over 1,500), a focus on maintaining a well documented, well tested core, and a smaller code-base with better performance. Seaside's JavaScript support now includes jQuery which sits alongside the existing Prototype and script.aculo.us based functionality. The MIT licensed Seaside is available to download for all Smalltalk platforms and an "open book" on developing with Seaside is also available.

(djwm)