You are thinking about the separation between source files and the running system, but there is no such thing as a separate source file in Smalltalk. You can ge

You are thinking about the separation between source files and the running system, but there is no such thing as a separate source file in Smalltalk. You can generate them if you wish, but it is not necessary. The code, in fact, is just a representation of the real system, which is contained in an image file. For example, when you want to modify an object in Smalltalk, the system generates a representation of it - with methods and instance variables - and you modify the representation with the system text editor. Then you ask to system to apply the changes to the object. When the changes are applied, that is it, no source files are needed anymore. The system continues to live like this. When your "programming session" is over, you save the whole image, and starts it again on the next day. No compilation of whole system is ever performed. It is said that some objects in a standard Smalltalk image have been alive for several years... they are only saved and used, never recompiled or modified.