We're in a bit of a period of flux with version control systems. CVS is showing its age, and how tools like subversion, darcs and others are battling it out to be the next CVS.
Smalltalk, on the other hand, doesn't integrate well with the version control systems we have all grown to love (or at least tolerate). Avi Bryant points out that these problems don't really surface for Smalltalk developers, because the Smalltalk VM can keep track of every change, and tag each change with more metadata than SCM tools can possibly capture.
Sorry, but I don't buy it. I call this "Smalltalk Disease" -- the arrogant tendency for Smalltalkers to dismiss a problem because they can mutate a Smalltalk image to nearly eliminate it. (And, if they haven't done it themselves, or the necessary features aren't present in your VM, then at least someone has done elsewhere, presumably in some production environment.)
OK. So you can upgrade your VM to handle versioning and merging of Smalltalk methods. Fine.
What happens when you want to version something else, like, data files, documents, or images? I guess CVS/Subversion/darcs/etc. aren't so useless after all....
