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

[Pharo-project] sorry busy this morning and probably early afternoon
by StÃ©phane Ducasse Aug. 24, 2010

Aug. 24, 2010

1 0

[Pharo-project] [Off topic] Presentation / slides tools
by laurent laffont Aug. 24, 2010

Aug. 24, 2010

Hi, to create presentation / slides for courses I use Latex + HA-prosper for years. But it seems I should change to have some nicer looking slides. I also want to have a pool of slides where I can cherry pick to create a new presentation. For Latex, beamer seems to have more audience than old prosper. I'm not against office suite tools if it's good (I remember to struggle with Power Point '97, was crap). I've choosed Latex / text files as it's easy / quick to move content from one slides to another. And I can use Emacs powers. I feel creating diagrams is always a pain. For my last presentation I've drawn each slide on a pocket book then scan each page :) What do you use ? What is really effective (tools and/or process) to prototype quickly slides ? Cheers, Laurent Laffont http://pharocasts.blogspot.com/ http://magaloma.blogspot.com/

3 4

[Pharo-project] Making the compilation process more testeable
by NicolÃ¡s Paez Aug. 24, 2010

Aug. 24, 2010

Hi, I am working on a project experimenting with the compiler-related stuff. I had to introduce some small modifications to some classes used in the compilation process in order to complete my experiment. I wrote some test to be sure I don't any add buggy code. While doing this I noticed that if you try to compile "invalid" code programmatically instead of getting an exception you just get some messages on the Transcript. After debugging for a while, I discovered that one of the classes responsible of this behavior is *UndeclaredVariableWarning** *(defaultAction method). I have just reported an issue for this: http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=2852 Regards. Saludos! Nico. blog: http://nicopaez.wordpress.com

1 0

Re: [Pharo-project] ExternalAddress and block copy; ByteArray and external calls?
by Schwab,Wilhelm K Aug. 23, 2010

Aug. 23, 2010

Bert, That's helpful in the extreme. I still think this type of thing could and should be more obvious from crawling around in the image, and with the memcpy dispatched through something OS specific or exported by the vm so it "just works" on different platforms. Ironically, the thing that threw this in my face will probably require me to write my own library function (the data are most likely going to end up interleaved in a way I don't want). The library grabbing the data will indeed linger with the pointer, so that has to be external. The function I will end up writing can dump data into a byte array. What about cleanup of the external addresses? Do they finalize themselves? Can I safely free them when I know I am done with them? Bill Bert Freudenberg bert at freudenbergs.de Mon Aug 23 21:34:50 UTC 2010 On 23.08.2010, at 23:16, Schwab,Wilhelm K wrote: > Andreas, > > Thanks for code, but should this not be in the image, associated in some way with ExternalAddress and/or ByteArray? > > Can I simply use a ByteArray to make a buffer that I pass to an external library? My understanding is that it could be moved by the gc (ouch!!) Am I wrong? If there is a way to instantiate a byte array that won't move, great. It won't move while you are calling that library. But it can move after return. So as long as the library does not retain a pointer to the buffer, this will work fine. If the lib *does* retain the pointer, use ExternalAddress allocate: or gcallocate: to make the buffer, and memcpy to fill it quickly or retrieve the data. - Bert -

1 0

[Pharo-project] Loading platform-specific code
by Sean P. DeNigris Aug. 23, 2010

Aug. 23, 2010

In working on ExternalWebBrowser, I got thinking about loading platform-specific (i.e. Mac/Windows) code. ExternalWebBrowser does a check in a class>>initialization, and only installs a library that is required for operation on Macs, if the image is running on a Mac. Something about this feels wrong. I want to be able to put my image and a VM on a USB key and bring it to a client, who may be running on Windows (gasp!), and run the image. It's easy enough to bring or download a VM, but ExternalWebBrowser is now locked in "Mac-mode." In a service with equivalent Windows/Unix-specific requirements, it might be difficult (or impossible) to get it to work. It seems to me better to either: * install all such requirements right off the bat (for one thing - you probably have an internet connection to download them) * or, put a lazy initialization for it, so the first time the functionality is used, the packages are installed. I guess this would depend on there being a single access point to all the platform code. What do you all think? Thanks. Sean -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Loading-platform-specific-code-tp2318610p2318610.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

5 11

[Pharo-project] ExternalAddress and block copy; ByteArray and external calls?
by Schwab,Wilhelm K Aug. 23, 2010

Aug. 23, 2010

Are there any well-worn ways to move data into and out of external memory? The best I have been able to uncover are recommendations to either do it one byte at a time (yuk!) or to via bitblt. Those posts come from several years ago, and include mention that ExternalAddress does not clean up after itself. Looking in Pharo now, I see #finalize that calls free; have things move along to avoid memory leaks? There are no conditions in #finalize or #free, which raises questions about whether it is safe to send #free to quickly free memory that will no longer be used? In Dolphin, I reflexively free ODBC related handles because they quickly pile up and cause problems despite the finalization "water mark." I am currently working with a data acquisition board and will be needing memory for clearly defined periods. I also need to get data out of the buffers, which sent me looking for an official way to do so. To what extent, if any, can String and ByteArray be used as buffers for external calls? Dolphin made that robust, but there were hints that the gc was slightly tamed to allow it. The little reading I have done in squeak-dev archives suggests that squeak/pharo is not so forgiving. Is that true? Is there a way to request a byte array allocated in a fixed (or whatever the jargon is) heap so that external calls will be safe? Bill

1 0

Re: [Pharo-project] [Pharo-users] 3600 seconds seconds = 0 ???
by Mariano Martinez Peck Aug. 23, 2010

Aug. 23, 2010

are you sure you wanted pharo-users or pharo-dev? On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 6:04 PM, StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr > wrote: > 3600 seconds seconds = 0 > which means that this is a number of seconds in the hour:min:seconds > decomposition > > Now it looks to me that the method comment is wrong > > seconds > "Answer the number of seconds the receiver represents." > > ^ (seconds rem: SecondsInMinute) > > > 3600 seconds asSeconds = 3600 is what is working > > may be (Duration seconds: 3600) would be better > > To me there is something conceptually bogus with such definition of minutes > and seconds. > (Duration seconds: 3600) minutes = 0 > (Duration seconds: 3600) seconds = 0 > > > > Stef > > > _______________________________________________ > Pharo-users mailing list > Pharo-users(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr > http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/pharo-users >

1 0

Aug. 23, 2010

HI guys Gofer new squeaksource: 'PharoTaskForces'; package: 'ConfigurationOfRPackage'; load ConfigurationOfRPackage project load: #default I thought that default would only load core since there is package: 'Metacello-Core' with: [ spec includes: #('Metacello-MC' 'Metacello-Platform' ). ]; package: 'Metacello-MC' with: [ spec requires: #('Metacello-Core' 'Gofer Core' ). ]; package: 'Metacello-Platform' with: [ spec requires: #('Metacello-MC' ). ]; spec group: 'default' with: #('Metacello-Core' ); but it loads OB so I'm confused. And stuck because OB does not load in 1.2 so I lost one hour...... boring. Stef

4 14

[Pharo-project] AlphaImageMorph defaultImage
by Gary Chambers Aug. 23, 2010

Aug. 23, 2010

Since the "standard" default image is removed (baby's hands?). Might I suggest, before relase of new images... AlphaImageMorph classPool at: #Default put: (World findA: ImageMorph) image Sorry for the #findA: Else set to whatever makes the Pharo logo... Gives something better than nothing in the context of UITheme exampleOtherControls. Regards, Gary

1 0

Re: [Pharo-project] [Vm-dev] RE: Linux vm
by Schwab,Wilhelm K Aug. 23, 2010

Aug. 23, 2010

Subbu, What is the debug mode? Is it a build option, or something more readily available to an end user? As for the code, I provided the entire function. Depending on what falls out of the question above, I might find that all is well as-is; otherwise I can send the entire file (where?) if needed. Bill ________________________________________ From: K. K. Subramaniam [kksubbu.ml(a)gmail.com] Sent: Monday, August 23, 2010 11:06 AM To: Schwab,Wilhelm K Cc: vm-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org Subject: Re: [Vm-dev] RE: Linux vm On Monday 23 Aug 2010 6:49:43 pm Schwab,Wilhelm K wrote: > strace might do the job, but what is wrong with having the vm log what it > is trying to do? You could also use ltrace(1). The vm already logs entries in debug mode. Non-debug run-times can be traced with strace/ltrace. Performance can be optimized by changing LD_LIBRARY_PATH and -plugins options in the launcher script. In any case, you can send in your suggestions (complete file, not a diff) for Ian's consideration. Subbu

1 0