Which innovations (like MVC, xunit, Hotspot) did Smalltalk bring?

Question

I find more and more aspects where Smalltalk was the innovator, i.e. created the technique or at least the overall concept for the first time. I can think of the following:

• xunit approach
• IDE concepts
• VM optimizations
• fluent interfaces
• several design patterns (e.g. model-view-controller)
• the class-free prototype paradigm.

Are all of these correct? Which further innovations did Smalltalk bring?

I'm sure there are more (e.g. in the field of language design?)

Answer 1

• The mouse
• Unit Testing
• Refactoring
• Scavenging GC
• image concept (snapshot)

Answer 2

It is the first language that was a clear improvement on a large majority of its successors (with the possible exceptions of self and newspeak). If you want to see the future of java and c#, look no further than smalltalk.

Answer 3

Also, Dan Ingalls is usually given credit for inventing BitBLT as part of Smalltalk 72.

I would also add "IDE" to the list, but I have no citation to back that up.

Answer 4

You forgot one BIG thing: object-oriented programming

Answer 5

I read somewhere that smalltalk implemented the first window based GUI. Hard to beat that ;)

Answer 6

Domain-Driven Design: Trygve Renskaug's papers on the MVC pattern discuss heavily the importance of representing the domain of the system in the object model and separating it from the conceptual view.