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

[Pharo-project] VMs and Parallelism (Was: Popularity of Smalltalk in Software Industry)

by Stefan Marr

On 07 May 2011, at 13:37, Igor Stasenko wrote: > So, where those customers to sponsor development of VM(s) they need so much? In general? They are with the 'cool kids': http://luajit.org/sponsors.html Nothing multicore-ish thought.... > That's the main problem, IMO. Most smalltalkers i met (oh.. why.. not > just smalltalkers), > fear parallelism like fire. Refer to it as something too complex they > can't understand. > And i think that's why "Parallelism to masses" approach is largely > failing , not just in smalltalk, > but in whole software industry. One problem we usually face is: good use cases Computational expensive problems are usually not a big issue, since they are very often just data-parallel. And getting that right by construction is not an intrinsically harder problem than recursion. And then we have task parallelism. Well, just use another app next to another next to another... Your favorite OS, or app server does that for you. Nothing hard here either. It becomes only tricky once you have an application that is kind of slowish, and you are migrating from a 2GHz processor to a 1.7GHz dual-core. Then, you most likely have to rethink the whole thing. And I don't see any magic that will help us with that. Whether that is hard or not, I don't know. The only safe thing to say: it depends on your application. We discussed a similar thing recently. And one of the insights from all the Erlang experience out there is, that the tools alone are not enough, you have to reshape your problem. And I guess that is the hard part. A language can only guide you in a certain direction, we still need to understand the problem enough to be able to gain something with parallelism. Parallelism per se is not the issue, concurrency is the devil... Best regards Stefan -- Stefan Marr Software Languages Lab Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium http://soft.vub.ac.be/~smarr Phone: +32 2 629 2974 Fax: +32 2 629 3525

May 7, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Popularity of Smalltalk in Software Industry

by Igor Stasenko

On 7 May 2011 08:54, Douglas Brebner <squeaklists(a)fang.demon.co.uk> wrote: > On 07/05/2011 01:06, Igor Stasenko wrote: >> >> On 6 May 2011 23:45, Stefan Marr<pharo(a)stefan-marr.de> Â wrote: >>> >>> On 06 May 2011, at 19:08, Igor Stasenko wrote: >>> >>>> How about CogVM? Should we stop developing it? Or we should start >>>> supporting both? And can we do that without too much pain? Give us the >>>> idea. >>> >>> It is all about adopting the ideas, and I could collaboration on that, >>> but I can't do that work. >>> The only problem I see is that there does not seem to be a business case >>> for a CogVM with parallel Smalltalk Process execution. >>> >> I can tell you more: there is no business cases for VM(s) which can do >> manycore :) >> At least, to my perception, there is not much pressure from people >> (even on mainstream languages) to leverage this technology. >> I thought it is very close to come into our houses, but no.. it stuck >> somewhere on marketplace, buying a better clothes. >> > > I have the bad feeling that there will continue to be no business case for > manycore VMs (or serious concurrency in general) until we hit a wall at > which point they'll suddenly go from uninteresting to desperately essential > and any language not able to make the jump will be in big trouble. > > Besides, wasn't part of Smalltalk all about leading the way rather than > following behind? > To lead, you need to have plenty of resources at your disposal. Human and material ones. -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

May 7, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Popularity of Smalltalk in Software Industry

by Igor Stasenko

On 7 May 2011 07:25, Michael Haupt <mhaupt(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Igor, > > Am 07.05.2011 um 02:06 schrieb Igor Stasenko <siguctua(a)gmail.com>: > > Heh.. then we're 99% done. Except that this last 1% is still could > take years to complete :) > > you serious? Making a Smalltalk image thread-safe is that hard? > > I can tell you more: there is no business cases for VM(s) which can do > manycore :) > At least, to my perception, there is not much pressure from people > (even on mainstream languages) to leverage this technology. > > What market are you talking about? There are lots and lots of customers of > certain big database/appliance vendors that would loudly protest had the > stuff they bought no inherent support for parallel execution. > So, where those customers to sponsor development of VM(s) they need so much? > I thought it is very close to come into our houses, but no.. it stuck > somewhere on marketplace, buying a better clothes. > > And now it's arrived in tablets already. It's your problem if you leave your > iPad lying around *outside* your house. ;-) > I am not talking about hardware, i'm talking about software. It is largely not using parallelism, or using it wrong. > Implementing VM which enabling massive parallelism is just a > beginning. Then obviously you need do to a lot at language side > to leverage that, in order to really say "yes, our system(s) are aware > of multicore and can scale almost linearly in future". > > And do not forget the most important thing: people must be educated to > program for parallelism. The computing power is there to be exploited, but > programmers need to know how to exploit it. You can't rely on the compiler > or VM alone. > That's the main problem, IMO. Most smalltalkers i met (oh.. why.. not just smalltalkers), fear parallelism like fire. Refer to it as something too complex they can't understand. And i think that's why "Parallelism to masses" approach is largely failing , not just in smalltalk, but in whole software industry. > Now, given that squeak's code a hugely non-thread-safe, imagine how > many iterations in redesign it would take to make it thread-safe > first, and then make it run in parallel with rest of the stuff. > > Is it really *that* hard or is this just FUD? > Its not that hard. But if you take the previous paragraph into account... > Best, > Michael -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

May 7, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Popularity of Smalltalk in Software Industry

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

Too bad. The eclipse license is not for us. Now do you imply that Process should use your primitive? Stef > On 07 May 2011, at 09:19, StÃ©phane Ducasse wrote: > >> when and where did you announce that? >> Where is the code? > > http://forum.world.st/RoarVM-The-Manycore-SqueakVM-td3025321.html > > And here the MVC compatibility code: > https://github.com/smarr/RoarVM/raw/master/image.st/RVM-multicore-support.m… > > And there is even a file for minimal Pharo compatibility: > https://github.com/smarr/RoarVM/raw/master/image.st/RVM-multicore-support.p… > > > -- > Stefan Marr > Software Languages Lab > Vrije Universiteit Brussel > Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium > http://soft.vub.ac.be/~smarr > Phone: +32 2 629 2974 > Fax: +32 2 629 3525 > >

May 7, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Popularity of Smalltalk in Software Industry

by Stefan Marr

On 07 May 2011, at 09:19, StÃ©phane Ducasse wrote: > when and where did you announce that? > Where is the code? http://forum.world.st/RoarVM-The-Manycore-SqueakVM-td3025321.html And here the MVC compatibility code: https://github.com/smarr/RoarVM/raw/master/image.st/RVM-multicore-support.m… And there is even a file for minimal Pharo compatibility: https://github.com/smarr/RoarVM/raw/master/image.st/RVM-multicore-support.p… -- Stefan Marr Software Languages Lab Vrije Universiteit Brussel Pleinlaan 2 / B-1050 Brussels / Belgium http://soft.vub.ac.be/~smarr Phone: +32 2 629 2974 Fax: +32 2 629 3525

May 7, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] PBE in HTML [was: Popularity of Smalltalk in Software Industry]

by Sven Van Caekenberghe

On 07 May 2011, at 09:46, laurent laffont wrote: > oh, it's the first thing I've learned in Pharo. Right-click, do it :) Great! This should become a famous quote. Sven

May 7, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] PBE in HTML [was: Popularity of Smalltalk in Software Industry]

by laurent laffont

On Sat, May 7, 2011 at 9:23 AM, StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr>wrote: > this would be gorgeous. > I like your doing spirit laurent! > oh, it's the first thing I've learned in Pharo. Right-click, do it :) Laurent > > Stef > > On May 6, 2011, at 6:51 PM, laurent laffont wrote: > > > > > On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 5:30 PM, StÃ©phane Ducasse < > stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr> wrote: > > I installed pdf to html but I could not make it run :( > > > > htlatex seems OK, we can start with this. Need to supply a nice CSS > though. I will try to find some time to play with (help always welcome :) > > > > Laurent. > > > > > > On May 6, 2011, at 2:05 PM, laurent laffont wrote: > > > > > On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 11:56 AM, StÃ©phane Ducasse < > stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr> wrote: > > > Ok if some good souls want to give a try to generate html. > > > > > > > > > On OSX with MacTex-2010 installed, I've tried > > > > > > git clone --depth 1 > https://github.com/SquareBracketAssociates/PharoByExample-english.git > > > cd PharoByExample-english/ > > > htlatex PBE1.tex "html,2" > > > > > > Then open PBE1.html , one page per chapter. > > > > > > See http://www.tug.org/applications/tex4ht/mn-commands.html > > > > > > Laurent. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Stef > > > > > > > > > > > > > Probably we should find a way to generate HTML from PDF or Latex. > > > > Any ideas? > > > > > > > > I've used latex2html several years ago. > > > > > > > > +1 for html > > > > > > > > Laurent. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >>>> Now for the documentation when did you send an help > documentation for any part of the system? > > > > >>>> Or a bug fix? > > > > >>>> I find quite funny that people always talk but few are doing. We > welcome comments/examples help. > > > > >>> No need to get into a cat-fight here :) > > > > >> > > > > >> No this is not my point. But what do people really do to help? > > > > >> > > > > >>> I do agree with Stefan, as well as with you that we could help; > but I'm unaware of a good documentation effort outside of the image to start > with. Camillo's website project might be the best effort I've seen until > now; but then I didn't really look either. Maybe I missed some great > website? > > > > >> > > > > >> If this is just to spit out class comment on html I do not call > that a documentation. > > > > >> Now we can take the book contents and generate html > > > > >> We have 350 pages in the first book and the same in the second > one. > > > > >> People are free to join and write one or two chapters. > > > > > > > > > > StÃ©phane, > > > > > > > > > > Of course you are right: wining/complaining doesn't help, only > action does. We need more people like Laurent focusing on documentation. > > > > > > > > > > I for one think that the well written, high quality books that > exist (PBE, Seaside Book) are *very valuable*, much better than confusing > wiki site (although these have their place as well). > > > > > > > > > > But the other point is: in most other popular languages, what > current, young developers do, when they get an error that they don't > understand is copy/paste the literal text in Google and in a surprisingly > large number of cases you find some real answers in the first page. > > > > > > > > > > This is also related to popularity of course. > > > > > > > > > > Sven > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

May 7, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] [Pharo-users] [COTDC] 60 - DirectoryURI

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

do it. One idea was to replace all the file ref with URI but for later. Stef On May 6, 2011, at 11:46 PM, Guillermo Polito wrote: > I'd love to :). > > And OpaqueUri can be removed by just adding an attribute to URI for the boolean ;) > > On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 6:06 PM, laurent laffont <laurent.laffont(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 8:21 PM, laurent laffont <laurent.laffont(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Today: DirectoryURI > > This class is empty and only referenced in URI class, could be replaced by HierarchicalURI.... Should we remove / deprecate it ? > > Laurent. > > > > > Comment Of The Day Contest - One Day One Comment > Rules: > #1: Each day a not commented class is elected. Each day the best comment will be integrated with name of the author(s). > #2: If you cannot comment it, deprecate it. > Results: http://code.google.com/p/pharo/wiki/CommentOfTheDayContest > > Laurent > >

May 7, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] Send a notification

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

alex drop some notes in a file if you see what I mean :) Stef On May 6, 2011, at 11:02 PM, Alexandre Bergel wrote: > Thanks, > > Alexandre > > > On 6 May 2011, at 15:59, Jan van de Sandt wrote: > >> >> On May 6, 2011 8:45 PM, "Alexandre Bergel" <alexandre.bergel(a)me.com> wrote: >>> >>>> As long as your SMTP doesn't require encryption this is simple: Use >>>> MailSender that comes with every Pharo image. Seaside provides some >>>> objects on top of that, so that you don't have to assemble the message >>>> by hand. >>> >>> Ok, we will check >>> >>>>> We then thought about emitting twitts, but there is a need to authorize the client. Anyone has experience? >>>> >>>> Twitter requires OAuth, which requires an SSL capable HTTP client. >>> >>> Does this mean this cannot be done now in Pharo? >> >> It can be done in Pharo using CloudforkSSO. See http://blog.doit.st >> >> Jan. >> >>> >>> Alexandre >>> -- >>> _,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;: >>> Alexandre Bergel http://www.bergel.eu >>> ^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> > > -- > _,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;: > Alexandre Bergel http://www.bergel.eu > ^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;. > > > > > >

May 7, 2011

Re: [Pharo-project] PBE in HTML [was: Popularity of Smalltalk in Software Industry]

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

this would be gorgeous. I like your doing spirit laurent! Stef On May 6, 2011, at 6:51 PM, laurent laffont wrote: > > On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 5:30 PM, StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr> wrote: > I installed pdf to html but I could not make it run :( > > htlatex seems OK, we can start with this. Need to supply a nice CSS though. I will try to find some time to play with (help always welcome :) > > Laurent. > > > On May 6, 2011, at 2:05 PM, laurent laffont wrote: > > > On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 11:56 AM, StÃ©phane Ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)inria.fr> wrote: > > Ok if some good souls want to give a try to generate html. > > > > > > On OSX with MacTex-2010 installed, I've tried > > > > git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/SquareBracketAssociates/PharoByExample-english.git > > cd PharoByExample-english/ > > htlatex PBE1.tex "html,2" > > > > Then open PBE1.html , one page per chapter. > > > > See http://www.tug.org/applications/tex4ht/mn-commands.html > > > > Laurent. > > > > > > > > > > Stef > > > > > > > > > Probably we should find a way to generate HTML from PDF or Latex. > > > Any ideas? > > > > > > I've used latex2html several years ago. > > > > > > +1 for html > > > > > > Laurent. > > > > > > > > > > > > >>>> Now for the documentation when did you send an help documentation for any part of the system? > > > >>>> Or a bug fix? > > > >>>> I find quite funny that people always talk but few are doing. We welcome comments/examples help. > > > >>> No need to get into a cat-fight here :) > > > >> > > > >> No this is not my point. But what do people really do to help? > > > >> > > > >>> I do agree with Stefan, as well as with you that we could help; but I'm unaware of a good documentation effort outside of the image to start with. Camillo's website project might be the best effort I've seen until now; but then I didn't really look either. Maybe I missed some great website? > > > >> > > > >> If this is just to spit out class comment on html I do not call that a documentation. > > > >> Now we can take the book contents and generate html > > > >> We have 350 pages in the first book and the same in the second one. > > > >> People are free to join and write one or two chapters. > > > > > > > > StÃ©phane, > > > > > > > > Of course you are right: wining/complaining doesn't help, only action does. We need more people like Laurent focusing on documentation. > > > > > > > > I for one think that the well written, high quality books that exist (PBE, Seaside Book) are *very valuable*, much better than confusing wiki site (although these have their place as well). > > > > > > > > But the other point is: in most other popular languages, what current, young developers do, when they get an error that they don't understand is copy/paste the literal text in Google and in a surprisingly large number of cases you find some real answers in the first page. > > > > > > > > This is also related to popularity of course. > > > > > > > > Sven > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

May 7, 2011