{"slug": "gtoolkit", "name": "GToolkit", "category": "editors", "category_name": "Editors and IDEs", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 3.534, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2025-11-11", "latest": "2026-07-29", "why": "a COBOL-bridge that has been used in managing transitions of legacy systems", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "a COBOL-bridge that has been used in managing transitions of legacy systems", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "gtoolkit.com", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://gtoolkit.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["GToolkit"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 785620720, "item_id": 49101295, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49101295", "by": "klibertp", "date": "2026-07-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "But it's very fun to use and play with", "excerpt": "GToolkit[1] - a Smalltalk environment that's based on Pharo but replaces the UI framework and some other parts of the stack. It uses Rust through FFI to interface with and bundle native dependencies. I don't remember the exact numbers, but when I checked, the GT+Pharo ecosystem (available packages, number of people in Discord, tools with support for the language, etc.) was ~2x smaller than Common Lisp's. It also come", "context": "", "use_case": "hobby and side projects", "switched_from": "", "story": "Steel Bank Common Lisp version 2.6.7"}, {"id": 784964800, "item_id": 49060300, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060300", "by": "aquariusDue", "date": "2026-07-26", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lepiter (and GT by extension) seems immensely powerful", "excerpt": "Yep, I'd like to use GT as an IDE for non-Smalltalk code like I currently use Emacs though the off-topic rant is very welcome too and I thank you for it! Regarding the point of Lepiter vs Org I gave GT another go after I posted my comment and I realized that with the power of \"adornments\" (which you've mentioned) and so on Lepiter can be more flexible than Org files in a way (though the HTML export seems to ignore ou", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Malleable Computing, Emacs, and You"}, {"id": 757257824, "item_id": 47328614, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47328614", "by": "klibertp", "date": "2026-03-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "See GToolkit", "excerpt": "See GToolkit[1] - Lepiter is a bit like that. It's too notebook-y for my taste, but it lets you write and format text and embed any widget. It also uses a native GUI and is not a repackaged browser. [1] https://gtoolkit.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Two Years of Emacs Solo: 35 Modules, Zero External Packages, and a Full Refactor"}, {"id": 757252226, "item_id": 47328264, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47328264", "by": "klibertp", "date": "2026-03-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "which handles GUI better is GToolkit", "excerpt": "> I just want a GUI that works like what they use. TL;DR: Emacs is a GUI app and has lots of GUI-related functionality, but it tends to be slightly neglected by the majority of users. You can easily build your ideal GUI using the provided building blocks; the problem is, you have to build it, since most other users are not interested in doing so. Both Emacs and Vim/NeoVIM have GUIs. I can't even run my Emacs in a ter", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Two Years of Emacs Solo: 35 Modules, Zero External Packages, and a Full Refactor"}, {"id": 753407040, "item_id": 47087940, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087940", "by": "xkriva11", "date": "2026-02-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "https://gtoolkit.com/ or https://moosetechnology.org/", "excerpt": "https://gtoolkit.com/ or https://moosetechnology.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "Understanding unfamiliar codebases", "switched_from": "", "story": "Untapped Way to Learn a Codebase: Build a Visualizer"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 784586384, "item_id": 49036649, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49036649", "by": "klibertp", "date": "2026-07-24", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Multiple cursors, iedit, re-builder/visual-regex, editable occur, AST-based editing (paredit/combobulate) are just some of the features I use regularly in Emacs which are (and will be, for a long time) missing in GT.", "excerpt": "> Please correct me if I'm wrong and things changed in the meantime. Sadly, you're not wrong, and as an Emacs user (since 2012) myself, I share your reservations. The text editing widgets in GToolkit are usable, but nowhere near what you get in Emacs. Multiple cursors, iedit, re-builder/visual-regex, editable occur, AST-based editing (paredit/combobulate) are just some of the features I use regularly in Emacs which a", "context": "", "use_case": "Smalltalk development environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Malleable Computing, Emacs, and You"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["hobby and side projects", "smalltalk development environment", "smalltalk development", "understanding unfamiliar codebases", "legacy cobol analysis"], "compared": [{"slug": "lepiter", "name": "Lepiter", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "gnu-emacs", "name": "GNU Emacs", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49013538", "title": "Malleable Computing, Emacs, and You", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47317616", "title": "Two Years of Emacs Solo: 35 Modules, Zero External Packages, and a Full Refactor", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49086971", "title": "Steel Bank Common Lisp version 2.6.7", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47178344", "title": "Working on Pharo Smalltalk: BPatterns: Rewrite Engine with Smalltalk Style", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47085425", "title": "Untapped Way to Learn a Codebase: Build a Visualizer", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45877517", "title": "Launch HN: Hypercubic (YC F25) \u2013 AI for COBOL and Mainframes", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 785620720, "item_id": 49101295, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49101295", "by": "klibertp", "date": "2026-07-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "But it's very fun to use and play with", "excerpt": "GToolkit[1] - a Smalltalk environment that's based on Pharo but replaces the UI framework and some other parts of the stack. It uses Rust through FFI to interface with and bundle native dependencies. I don't remember the exact numbers, but when I checked, the GT+Pharo ecosystem (available packages, number of people in Discord, tools with support for the language, etc.) was ~2x smaller than Common Lisp's. It also come", "context": "", "use_case": "hobby and side projects", "switched_from": "", "story": "Steel Bank Common Lisp version 2.6.7"}, {"id": 784964800, "item_id": 49060300, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49060300", "by": "aquariusDue", "date": "2026-07-26", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Lepiter (and GT by extension) seems immensely powerful", "excerpt": "Yep, I'd like to use GT as an IDE for non-Smalltalk code like I currently use Emacs though the off-topic rant is very welcome too and I thank you for it! Regarding the point of Lepiter vs Org I gave GT another go after I posted my comment and I realized that with the power of \"adornments\" (which you've mentioned) and so on Lepiter can be more flexible than Org files in a way (though the HTML export seems to ignore ou", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Malleable Computing, Emacs, and You"}, {"id": 784586384, "item_id": 49036649, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49036649", "by": "klibertp", "date": "2026-07-24", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Multiple cursors, iedit, re-builder/visual-regex, editable occur, AST-based editing (paredit/combobulate) are just some of the features I use regularly in Emacs which are (and will be, for a long time) missing in GT.", "excerpt": "> Please correct me if I'm wrong and things changed in the meantime. Sadly, you're not wrong, and as an Emacs user (since 2012) myself, I share your reservations. The text editing widgets in GToolkit are usable, but nowhere near what you get in Emacs. Multiple cursors, iedit, re-builder/visual-regex, editable occur, AST-based editing (paredit/combobulate) are just some of the features I use regularly in Emacs which a", "context": "", "use_case": "Smalltalk development environment", "switched_from": "", "story": "Malleable Computing, Emacs, and You"}, {"id": 757257824, "item_id": 47328614, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47328614", "by": "klibertp", "date": "2026-03-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "See GToolkit", "excerpt": "See GToolkit[1] - Lepiter is a bit like that. It's too notebook-y for my taste, but it lets you write and format text and embed any widget. It also uses a native GUI and is not a repackaged browser. [1] https://gtoolkit.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Two Years of Emacs Solo: 35 Modules, Zero External Packages, and a Full Refactor"}, {"id": 757252226, "item_id": 47328264, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47328264", "by": "klibertp", "date": "2026-03-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "which handles GUI better is GToolkit", "excerpt": "> I just want a GUI that works like what they use. TL;DR: Emacs is a GUI app and has lots of GUI-related functionality, but it tends to be slightly neglected by the majority of users. You can easily build your ideal GUI using the provided building blocks; the problem is, you have to build it, since most other users are not interested in doing so. Both Emacs and Vim/NeoVIM have GUIs. I can't even run my Emacs in a ter", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Two Years of Emacs Solo: 35 Modules, Zero External Packages, and a Full Refactor"}, {"id": 754922961, "item_id": 47182685, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47182685", "by": "klibertp", "date": "2026-02-27", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "GToolkit has Lepiter, and Smalltalks in general have comments on classes that can be used to write long-form docs.", "excerpt": "Honestly, as much as I love Smalltalk, I see this post as an illustration of all that's wrong in that community. Instead of documenting the original solution well, making a cheat sheet for it, or gathering examples (which you otherwise need to \"hunt\" for, according to the author) in one place, we're given another solution on top of the original inscrutable one. That new solution is still undocumented; in the post, th", "context": "", "use_case": "Smalltalk development", "switched_from": "", "story": "Working on Pharo Smalltalk: BPatterns: Rewrite Engine with Smalltalk Style"}, {"id": 753407040, "item_id": 47087940, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47087940", "by": "xkriva11", "date": "2026-02-20", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "https://gtoolkit.com/ or https://moosetechnology.org/", "excerpt": "https://gtoolkit.com/ or https://moosetechnology.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "Understanding unfamiliar codebases", "switched_from": "", "story": "Untapped Way to Learn a Codebase: Build a Visualizer"}, {"id": 734163200, "item_id": 45885200, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45885200", "by": "cess11", "date": "2025-11-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a COBOL-bridge that has been used in managing transitions of legacy systems", "excerpt": "I'm not sure what \"AI-native\" would mean but GT has LLM-integrations, support for working in distributed systems and a COBOL-bridge that has been used in managing transitions of legacy systems. Here's a talk about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8TSPED0alY If you load the code referenced here, https://book.gtoolkit.com/analyzing-cobol--the-aws-carddemo-case-stu-ddxd4pjfjsjbx0elhfaetwhkw , you can explore the dem", "context": "", "use_case": "legacy COBOL analysis", "switched_from": "", "story": "Launch HN: Hypercubic (YC F25) \u2013 AI for COBOL and Mainframes"}]}