Yeah, the entire state can be saved off. I was just trying to limit the context of the reply to code WRT VCS.

> I mean, for a web application most state should be in a database, but this takes some discipline.

This state could also reside in an image and Smalltalk has solutions like GemStone and Magma (OODBMS) solutions.

> And importing updated code to a live system sounds like a black magic.

Yeah, I don't think for most use cases this would be done. A new image would be built and deployed with the relevant code changes applied.