April 2011 - Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-project] [Vm-dev] Debugging Cog crash

by Schwab,Wilhelm K

Is there a debug version of Cog that I can run on the box? I have casually avoided learning how to build Cog in part because that means I can't hack the FFI plugin, which forces me to play by the rules on library paths/ldconfig, etc. It also means that I don't have a build environment ready to go, so I can't readily add syslog() calls to bracket where it quits. gdb isn't helping as described below. If there is something you want me to try, let me know. We have a reproducible Cog crash. ________________________________________ From: pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr [pharo-project-bounces(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr] On Behalf Of Schwab,Wilhelm K [bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu] Sent: Friday, April 08, 2011 6:03 PM To: Pharo-project(a)lists.gforge.inria.fr; Squeak Virtual Machine Development Discussion Subject: Re: [Pharo-project] [Vm-dev] FW: Debugging Cog crash Levente, I follow on why my shell script did not work. Your instructions got me going, but we still don't have an answer. The vm is running, but I cannot attach: http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/vm-dev/2008-March/001840.html >From what I read, one answer is the get the image loaded and then attach - my problem is that the vm never gets far enough to actually load the image. Any ideas? Bill

April 9, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Have started an independent developer activity - Thank you

by Mariano Martinez Peck

Congrats Laurent. I hope you can succeed! Remember that business is also part of the community. There are a lot of several companies held by guys in our community (also using Smalltalk). You, companies, should talk and do business together :) Cheers Mariano On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Sven Van Caekenberghe <sven(a)beta9.be>wrote: > > On 09 Apr 2011, at 09:34, laurent laffont wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after > read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job > went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive > software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a > cool community and I'm proud to be there. > > > > Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks > to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn > every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me. > > Great for you Laurent, you absolutely deserve, I wish you success. > > > Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix > bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were > those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is > "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;) > > > > Special big thank you to StÃ©phane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live > Pharo ! > > > > > > PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer: > > > > When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only > > tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out > > of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and > > eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in > the > > way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the > > process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better > > people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve > straight > > hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued > > for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using > > to search their rÃ©sumÃ© database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, > cried > > the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and > > programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than > > programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a > > different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk > > environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach > > a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of > > technical maturity that I hadnât been seeing from the candidates Iâd met > so > > far. > > The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate > pool > > that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were > diamonds > > in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They > > were aware that Java isnât the idealistic panacea itâs sometimes made out > > to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past > two > > weeks? we thought. > > Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries > we > > were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of > > them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job. > > Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit- > > ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with > diverse > > (and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were > > homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out > > diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into > alien > > experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft- > > ware developers. I suspect itâs a little of both, but regardless of why > it > > works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking > > for developers. > > Nice story, very true here as well, developers with broad interests are > better, but there are not many of them. > > > Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs > > > > Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/ > > Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/ > > Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st > > > > > > > -- Mariano http://marianopeck.wordpress.com

April 9, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Have started an independent developer activity - Thank you

by Alexandre Bergel

This equally applies to research, thanks to all of you. Alexandre On 9 Apr 2011, at 03:34, laurent laffont wrote: > Hi, > > I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool community and I'm proud to be there. > > Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me. > > Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;) > > Special big thank you to StÃ©phane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live Pharo ! > > > PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer: > > When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only > tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out > of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and > eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in the > way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the > process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better > people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve straight > hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued > for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using > to search their rÃ©sumÃ© database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, cried > the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and > programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than > programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a > different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk > environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach > a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of > technical maturity that I hadnât been seeing from the candidates Iâd met so > far. > The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate pool > that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were diamonds > in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They > were aware that Java isnât the idealistic panacea itâs sometimes made out > to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past two > weeks? we thought. > Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries we > were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of > them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job. > Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit- > ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with diverse > (and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were > homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out > diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into alien > experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft- > ware developers. I suspect itâs a little of both, but regardless of why it > works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking > for developers. > > > Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs > > Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/ > Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/ > Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st > > -- _,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;: Alexandre Bergel http://www.bergel.eu ^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;.

April 9, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Issue 3849 in pharo: ExternalSettings should be cleaned

by pharo＠googlecode.com

Updates: Status: FixProposed Labels: Milestone-1.3 Comment #2 on issue 3849 by marcus.d...(a)gmail.com: ExternalSettings should be cleaned http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=3849 1) do in the preamble Smalltalk removeFromShutDownList: ExternalSettings. Smalltalk removeFromStartUpList: ExternalSettings. Then file in the attached changeset Attachments: remExternalSettings.1.cs 518 bytes

April 9, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Issue 3188 in pharo: do we need SecurityManager?

by pharo＠googlecode.com

Comment #2 on issue 3188 by marcus.d...(a)gmail.com: do we need SecurityManager? http://code.google.com/p/pharo/issues/detail?id=3188 We need to integrate Issue 3818 before (changes / cleanups to startup logic)

April 9, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Have started an independent developer activity - Thank you

by Sven Van Caekenberghe

On 09 Apr 2011, at 09:34, laurent laffont wrote: > Hi, > > I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool community and I'm proud to be there. > > Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me. Great for you Laurent, you absolutely deserve, I wish you success. > Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;) > > Special big thank you to StÃ©phane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live Pharo ! > > > PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer: > > When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only > tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out > of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and > eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in the > way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the > process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better > people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve straight > hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued > for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using > to search their rÃ©sumÃ© database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, cried > the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and > programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than > programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a > different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk > environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach > a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of > technical maturity that I hadnât been seeing from the candidates Iâd met so > far. > The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate pool > that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were diamonds > in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They > were aware that Java isnât the idealistic panacea itâs sometimes made out > to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past two > weeks? we thought. > Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries we > were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of > them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job. > Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit- > ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with diverse > (and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were > homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out > diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into alien > experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft- > ware developers. I suspect itâs a little of both, but regardless of why it > works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking > for developers. Nice story, very true here as well, developers with broad interests are better, but there are not many of them. > Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs > > Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/ > Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/ > Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st > >

April 9, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Have started an independent developer activity - Thank you

by Marcus Denker

On Apr 9, 2011, at 9:34 AM, laurent laffont wrote: > Hi, > > I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool community and I'm proud to be there. > > Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me. > > Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;) > So we can add an entry to the "companies using pharo" soon, I hope! http://www.pharo-project.org/about/success-stories -- Marcus Denker -- http://www.marcusdenker.de INRIA Lille -- Nord Europe. Team RMoD.

April 9, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Have started an independent developer activity - Thank you

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

Tx :) I want more laurent laffont :) Stef On Apr 9, 2011, at 9:34 AM, laurent laffont wrote: > Hi, > > I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool community and I'm proud to be there. > > Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me. > > Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;) > > Special big thank you to StÃ©phane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live Pharo ! > > > PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer: > > When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only > tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out > of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and > eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in the > way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the > process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better > people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve straight > hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued > for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using > to search their rÃ©sumÃ© database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, cried > the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and > programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than > programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a > different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk > environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach > a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of > technical maturity that I hadnât been seeing from the candidates Iâd met so > far. > The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate pool > that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were diamonds > in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They > were aware that Java isnât the idealistic panacea itâs sometimes made out > to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past two > weeks? we thought. > Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries we > were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of > them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job. > Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit- > ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with diverse > (and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were > homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out > diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into alien > experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft- > ware developers. I suspect itâs a little of both, but regardless of why it > works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking > for developers. > > > Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs > > Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/ > Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/ > Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st > >

April 9, 2011

[Pharo-project] Have started an independent developer activity - Thank you

by laurent laffont

Hi, I discovered Smalltalk and Pharo almost three years ago and just after read Chad Fowler book "Passionate Programmer" (1st edition title was "My job went to India"). These have changed my developer life, how I perceive software and that great technology is fun, people doing it more. You're a cool community and I'm proud to be there. Now I've started an aside (paid :) independent developer activity thanks to a cool guy. That would not be possible without all the stuff I learn every day from the community and the urge to continue you give me. Each time I've made a step forward (open a blog, write ProfStef, fix bugs, create PharoCasts) I've been amazed that the generated effects were those described in Passionate Programmer (go read it !) The last chapter is "Go independent" so now I need the sequel ;) Special big thank you to StÃ©phane Ducasse - you're crazy :) Long live Pharo ! PS: nice piece of Passionate Programmer: When I was in India weeding through hundreds of candidates for only tens of jobs, the interview team was exhausting itself and running out of time because of a poor interview-to-hire hit rate. Heads hurting and eyes red, we held a late-night meeting to discuss a strategic change in the way we would go through the candidates. We had to either optimize the process so we could interview more people or somehow interview better people (or both). With what little was left of my voice after twelve straight hours of trying to drag answers out of dumbstruck programmers, I argued for adding Smalltalk to the list of keywords our headhunters were using to search their rÃ©sumÃ© database. But, nobody knows Smalltalk in India, cried the human resources director. That was my point. Nobody knew it, and programming in Smalltalk was a fundamentally different experience than programming in Java. The varying experience would give candidates a different level of expectations, and the dynamic nature of the Smalltalk environment would reshape the way a Java programmer would approach a problem. My hope was that these factors would encourage a level of technical maturity that I hadnât been seeing from the candidates Iâd met so far. The addition of Smalltalk to the requirements list yielded a candidate pool that was tiny in contrast to our previous list. These people were diamonds in the rough. They really understood object-oriented programming. They were aware that Java isnât the idealistic panacea itâs sometimes made out to be. Many of them loved to program! Where have you been for the past two weeks? we thought. Unfortunately, our ability to attract these developers for the salaries we were able to pay was limited. They were calling the shots, and most of them chose to stay where they were or to keep looking for a new job. Though we failed to recruit many of them, we learned a valuable recruit- ing lesson: we were more likely to extend offers to candidates with diverse (and even unorthodox) experience than to those whose experiences were homogenous. My explanation is that either the good people seek out diversity, because they love to learn new things, or being forced into alien experiences and environments created more mature, well-rounded soft- ware developers. I suspect itâs a little of both, but regardless of why it works, we learned that it works. I still use this technique when looking for developers. Laurent Laffont - @lolgzs <http://twitter.com/#!/lolgzs> Pharo Smalltalk Screencasts: http://www.pharocasts.com/ Blog: http://magaloma.blogspot.com/ Developer group: http://cara74.seasidehosting.st

April 9, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Unexpected behavior of roundTo:

by Marcus Denker

On Apr 9, 2011, at 9:09 AM, Andres Valloud wrote: > At the end of the day, we still insist on expecting there won't be loss of information just because we wrote a decimal print string for a binary floating point number. One can get offended or irritated all one wants, but the reality of the situation won't change. > > I think the real solution to these "problems" is to implement decimal floating point as per IEEE-754/2008. \\ The MPFR lib seems to me (as far as I understand) is inspired by IEEE 754 <SNIP> MPFR is a portable library written in C for arbitrary precision arithmetic on floating-point numbers. It is based on the GNU MP library. It aims to provide a class of floating-point numbers with precise semantics. The main characteristics of MPFR, which make it differ from most arbitrary precision floating-point software tools, are: â¢ the MPFR code is portable, i.e., the result of any operation does not depend on the machine word size mp_bits_per_limb (64 on most current processors); â¢ the precision in bits can be set exactly to any valid value for each variable (including very small precision); â¢ MPFR provides the four rounding modes from the IEEE 754-1985 standard, plus away-from-zero, as well as for basic operations as for other mathematical functions. .... The following five rounding modes are supported: â¢ MPFR_RNDN: round to nearest (roundTiesToEven in IEEE 754-2008), â¢ MPFR_RNDZ: round toward zero (roundTowardZero in IEEE 754-2008), â¢ MPFR_RNDU: round toward plus infinity (roundTowardPositive in IEEE 754-2008), â¢ MPFR_RNDD: round toward minus infinity (roundTowardNegative in IEEE 754-2008), â¢ MPFR_RNDA: round away from zero (experimental). The âround to nearestâ mode works as in the IEEE 754 standard: in case the number to be rounded lies exactly in the middle of two representable numbers, it is rounded to the one with the least significant bit set to zero. For example, the number 2.5, which is represented by (10.1) in binary, is rounded to (10.0)=2 with a precision of two bits, and not to (11.0)=3. This rule avoids the drift phenomenon mentioned by Knuth in volume 2 of The Art of Computer Programming (Section 4.2.2). </SNIP> > Then you can write something like 1.2345 and know for a fact the number represented is *exactly* 1.2345. At least one VisualWorks platform already supports decimal floating point in hardware (IBM's POWER line). C99 extensions exist at least in draft form to extend C so that it supports decimal floating point. IBM has released a GPL library in ANSI C that implements the feature. I am not sure what is the deal with the license and if you can e.g.: interface to it without making your whole Smalltalk GPL. > MPFR is LGPL, so linking that in the VM or using it via FFI is no problem license wise. Marcus -- Marcus Denker -- http://www.marcusdenker.de INRIA Lille -- Nord Europe. Team RMoD.

April 9, 2011