Smalltalk.org™ is provide to the Smalltalk community as a service of Active Information Corporation.

The editor of the site is Peter William Lount, [:|], a long time Smalltalk developer and serious Smalltalk Blockhead!

In common use blockhead usually refers to a stubborn person. In Smalltalk blocks are fragments of source code surrounded by square brackets, "[" and "]". The importance of Smalltalk Blocks can't be overstated. Much of the expressive power of Smalltalk derives from the powers of Blocks, aka Lamda Continuations. Blocks are powerful because you can "defer" their execution till a later time. Code surrounded by round parenthesis, "(" and ")", is executed as it is encountered in the program. Blocks on the other hand are objects like the rest of the things in Smalltalk and as such can be executed later on or right away. Thus their power. All of the control structures in Smalltalk are empowered and implmented using Blocks.

All the best and enjoy using Smalltalk!

Peter William Lount, Smalltalk Blockhead [:|]

---

Copyright 1999-2010 by Smalltalk.org™, All Rights Reserved.