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600: Mainline

When you work with many programming languages, you write a program using an editor, producing a text file. If you want to share that program with another programmer, you simply provide that programmer with a copy of the text file.

When you work with Smalltalk, you do everything in a development environment; hence, there is, ordinarily, no file to copy. You must invoke the file-out mechanism to convey your programs to others.

When you file out, you tell Smalltalk that you want to write the definitions of certain classes or methods into a file in a form that allows those class or method definitions to be absorbed back into another programmer's development environment. Absorption is done when you file in.

*---------------------*         *---------------------* 
|                     |         |                     | 
| Environment 1       |         | Environment 2       | 
|                     |         |                     | 
*---------------------*         *---------------------* 
          |                                ^  
          |                                |  
 File out |        *---------------*       | File in 
          |        |               |       | 
          *------> | Transfer file | ------* 
                   |               | 
                   *---------------*