April 2010 - Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

[Pharo-project] HelpSystem (was Documentation Team)
by Torsten Bergmann April 22, 2010

April 22, 2010

To clearify a few things from my side on the discussion on squeak-dev: 1. HelpSystem is working, if ASCII is OK for now we can use it Pharo/Squeak - otherwise I would see it as an early preview. I have clear goals how it should look like in the next iterations. For this more patience is necessary. 2. HelpSystem is independent from where and how the actual information is stored (I think I demonstrated this with the IRC example, the books and the API help). 3. I hope to keep HelpSystem in sync for major Squeak distributions (Squeak, Pharo, Cuis, ...) The last additions from Hannes already broke the code in Pharo. Seems to be a Pharo issue this time http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=2342 But please dont commit when it is only working in Squeak since my development environment is Pharo. 4. Yes, the content is currently ASCII but the design is prepared to add other types in future releases. A HelpTopic defines an ivar "contents" - currently referring to a string. I may add another ivar "contentType" in the future to handle/distinguish additionaly types (HTML, SqueaksRichText, Morphs/BookMorph, ...) 5. HelpSystem should not be limited to Squeak. It should also serve the case that when you write and deploy a commercial app in Squeak you may use it to provide help to your end user/customer 6. There are two types of help I see: A. SystemHelp: Help books/Tutorials/Manuals B. SystemReference: API Help, class comments HelpSystem is supporting both. I already wrote about the differences and details in http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/pipermail/pharo-project/2010-April/024857.html 7. I would really like to see support for HTML viewing in the image (HTMLViewMorph or so) - maybe based on Scamper to get a better viewer (headings, tables, ...) than the current plain text. If people want to contribute they should start right with this task. I know that Laurent already made Scamper loadable in Pharo, dont know about the state in Squeak. There is also another HTML browser with markup and CSS now available open source as MIT (WithStyle), I already mentioned this. http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/rowanb/blogView?showComments=true&… 8. I know that we now have discussions on which syntax (Wiki,...) to use for describing the contents. My answer is: it is important but I dont care (yet) since this discussion is useless until we have an HTML viewer (see 7.) and even when there are different syntax styles you can provides builders to transform them into HTML or other contentTypes afterwards. See the class HelpBuilder and subclasses. 9. If you want to write a book for SystemHelp (see 6.A) then the help system provides a class "CustomHelp" similar to TestCase in SUnit. This class is used to directly map book structures to the class hierarchy. The intention was to be able to create, store and manage these books directly with the usual Smalltalk tools. You can even restructure your book with the RefactoringBrowser. 10. If you want to write API help you (see 6.B) can contribute right now by commenting all the undocumented classes in the standard image. HelpSystem just queries these informations from the usual sources (class comments, ...). I would not change this or make it too complicated since this is what people are used too. I dont see more documented classes by introducing a special syntax (wiki or whatever) people have to learn/know about - so lets clean up documenting the classes first. 11. HelpSystem is able to get contents from external sources (see the IRC example) - but I would prefer that authoring/viewing could be done right from within the image. Even when the result is stored external afterwards. Look at my example books: I can view and change them right from the image and make them available to other images using Metacello/Squeaksource. Accessibility of docu (viewing and authoring) is the key to keep the system and docu in sync and up to date. External authoring mostly results in unmaintained docu (see the Squeak Swiki). 12. I thought again if it is ready to integrate into Pharo and Squeak. From all the discussions I would say it is too early. 13. If one wants the docu on the web the answer is easy: we can generate static files or serve them with Seaside. But I have no need for that right now, especially since this is already available in various forms. We can do many things (similar to Python, JavaDoc, you name it) But - let's do it step by step. As I said: - Someone working on a good HTML Viewer that I can integrate would really help moving this forward (based on Scamper or by porting WithStyle) - Updating class comments would also help a lot Bye Torsten -- GRATIS fÃ¼r alle GMX-Mitglieder: Die maxdome Movie-FLAT! Jetzt freischalten unter http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/maxdome01

4 6

[Pharo-project] Automatic generation of abstract methods
by Cyrille Delaunay April 22, 2010

April 22, 2010

Hello, Would it be difficult to generate automatically superclass-abstract methods (with an empty contents) when creating a new subclass? For example, imagine I want to make my own subclass of Collection. As there is a lot of methods in this class and probably abstract methods, it would be cool to see them directly in my subclass without having to look to Collection method one by one (?). I'm probably not the first to ask this question, but in case it is, that's done:)

3 2

Re: [Pharo-project] [Vm-dev] CMake for Windows?
by Geoffroy Couprie April 22, 2010

April 22, 2010

Ping! I know everyone is busy, but could someone test these CMake files? I can't install a VM to build unix Squeak right now, but I'll do it in the future. I just want to know if it's still possible to create unix squeak with these files :) On Sat, Apr 17, 2010 at 1:23 AM, Geoffroy Couprie <geo.couprie(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hello, > > You'll find my work on the CMake files at > http://eleves.ec-lille.fr/~couprieg/divers/patches.zip > > I put a CMakeLists.txt file just under the platforms/ directory, along > with the cmake/ directory. These files are based on the unix ones. I > modified them to change the source directory depending on the > platform. I also modified the configure file accordingly, but i > commented the code using subversion for my convenience during > development (feel free to change it back). > > These CMake files are not perfect, it's just the beginning. First, I > want to make sure that the unix port still builds with my file, and > then, I'll go on with the config.cmake and build.cmake files for the > plugins, and I'll clean CMakeLists.txt Â a bit. > > Feel free to comment, but note that I'm beginning with CMake, and that > I don't write bash code very often. And please, try it with the unix > port. I don't want to break everything :) > > Anyway, it works for me here (I can build a VM on Windows with the > File, Security, LargeIntegers and MiscPrimitive plugins using > MSYS+MinGW). > > Best regards, > > Geoffroy >

2 1

[Pharo-project] Hints and clues for a Pharo newb
by Peter Hugosson-Miller April 22, 2010

April 22, 2010

Hi all, So it's time for me to stop lurking and do some stuff. However, although I am an experienced Smalltalk programmer (VisualAge Smalltalk continuously since 1995), I am a complete newb when it comes to Pharo and Squeak, it's hard to find my way around, and it's going to take me some time to get up to speed. I'm working on a small improvement to the testing framework, using ideas that I have found to be very useful in my daily job over the past 15 years. Note that I am doing this from scratch, so that I don't accidentally steal anything that I've done in my work, but I know how it all works in VisualAge, so I feel sure that I'll eventually be able to find the corresponding classes and methods in Pharo. What I would like are a few hints, clues and nudges in the right direction for scenarios and questions that I will describe in this thread. What I *don't* want are full-blown solutions, because then I won't learn anything. I hope that some kind souls will be able to give me a little help in the beginning that will eventually bring me up to speed and let me be productive. So to start with, one scenario and one question: 1) I want to find or write a method on Process that will print a stack trace onto a supplied Stream. Ideally I'd like to be able to decide the start and stop depth of the trace, so for example if I know that the top 4 stack frames will always be uninteresting, I would want to be able to write something like this: Processor activeProcess printStackFrom: 5 to: 15 on: aStream. 2) What *exactly* is "thisContext"? It appears to be a reserved word in Pharo, just like the familiar "self", "super", "true", "false", "nil" that are always reserved in Smalltalk. I'd also like to get an idea of what it's good for, and if anyone can describe it in terms of something that is in VisualAge, that would be nice too :-) BTW, if this is not the appropriate place for a thread like this, then please tell me where I should put it (politely, of course :-p) -- Cheers, Peter

8 9

[Pharo-project] Some more dev on Polymorph for DrGeo
by Hilaire Fernandes April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

Known to work with Pharo 1.0. Someone asked for a more elaborated UI for DrGeo, here are some progresses in this polymorphization of DrGeo. In its latest Monticello package one can grab DrGeo at http://www.squeaksource.com/DrGeoII See enclosed screenshot for a quick view. To start a DrGeo instance, do a "DrGeo new" in a workspace and enjoy the UI. Beware, style tools does not work in the toolbar. It is also possible to use DrGeo as a service for Etoys when executing a "DrGeo sample openInWorld" It is also possible to load XML description of DrGeo 1.1 geometric sketch, if one is interested you can grab it at http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/drgeo/trunk/examples/figures/ and load a sketch with a command: DrGeo newXml: path Beware sketch with embedded Scheme code will not work (just try) Working sketch: mercedes, euler-line, DrGeoII comes with a better interface for scripting with Smalltalk script, empower by the IDE, much nice than the former Scheme one. Elaborated demonstration at http://blog.ofset.org/hilaire/index.php?post/script-drgeo (automatic translation link with Google in a comment, at the end of the article)

3 8

[Pharo-project] I will restart the integration over the week-end
by StÃ©phane Ducasse April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

I was in pharo integration desintoxication phase :) We will have to fix it somehow. but this is cool to see people pushing fixes. Stef

1 0

[Pharo-project] Doc about Coral?
by Nicolas Petton April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

Hi, I was wondering if there is some documentation about Coral? I would like to play a bit with it :) Cheers, Nico

2 1

[Pharo-project] Why does datedVersion appear in both SmalltalkImage and SystemVersion?
by Sean P. DeNigris April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

Why does datedVersion appear in both SmalltalkImage and SystemVersion? SmalltalkImage delegates to SystemVersion. Why have both? Sean -- View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Why-does-datedVersion-appear-in-both-SmalltalkImage-an… Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

3 2

[Pharo-project] We already have the selected projects and students!
by Mariano Martinez Peck April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

Hi folks. First of all, let me apologize for being quite offline the last weeks and for not helping too much. I had some personal stuff to do ;) Fortunately, Janko could take care of it and keep it rolling. Thanks a lot Janko. Here are what all of you want to know: the final results of voting for 5 projects to get this year GSoC stipendiums: 1. Cross-Platform Namespaces (score: 80) by GermÃ¡n Leiva, mentor James Foster http://gsoc2010.esug.org/projects/namespaces 2. Generate UML diagrams from Smalltalk code for Pharo (score: 77) by Carla Florencia Griggio, mentor Geert Claes http://gsoc2010.esug.org/projects/uml-from-smalltalk 3. Squeakland education project (score: 76) by Ricardo Moran, mentor Randall Caton http://gsoc2010.esug.org/projects/squeakland-education 4. Progress Towards a Cross-Dialect Smalltalk FFI (score: 74) by Dmitry Matveev, mentor Eliot Miranda http://gsoc2010.esug.org/projects/ffi 5. Visualization of profiling information in Pharo and Squeak (score:73) by Mariano Coca, mentor Alexandre Bergel http://gsoc2010.esug.org/projects/profiling-visualization Congratulations to the accepted students! Be aware that the most "non enjoyable" part of the process has already finished so now it's time to code, hack and have fun! You are the envy of a lot of people, you are being paid to program in something that you really like and enjoy. This is an excellent opportunity so take advantage of it and don't miss it. Please, work hard and deliver something, but never forget to have fun, learn and enjoy. For all the students which were not accepted, don't worry. If your project and proposal is good you will find another opportunity sooner than you expect. For us, this was an excellent opportunity to gather information about really interesting projects and, what's more, to know lots of great students with a passion for Smalltalk. With no doubt, we will keep in touch with all of you and we will eagerly wait your application for next years. Thanks again to all of you for helping us to make the Smalltalk community bigger and better. So stay tuned with us! Cheers Mariano Martinez Peck GSoC admin gsoc-admin(a)esug.org http://gsoc2010.esug.org

2 1

[Pharo-project] Error when 'Loading 11313-Pha-CleaningCompilerTests...'
by Sean P. DeNigris April 21, 2010

April 21, 2010

http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=2327 : Pharo image: core Pharo core version: PharoCore1.1ALPHA #11312 Virtual machine used: Squeak 4.2.4beta1U (Mac) Class browser used if applicable: Browser Steps to reproduce: 1. Click System->Software Update 'Error: can''t find EOCD position' -- View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Error-when-Loading-11313-Pha-CleaningCompilerTests-tp2… Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

5 8