March 2012 - Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-project] Increase populatity of Pharo by doing some Killer-OpenSource-Tools

by Igor Stasenko

On 9 March 2012 22:41, Geert Claes <geert.wl.claes(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Ok, I have succumbed and will post a quick reply ... although I realize this > looks like one of those threads where a lot of people say "we need to do > this ... or ... we need to do what xyz does" and as Stef often - and rightly > so - says, don't just talk but roll up your sleeves and do something :) > > Anyhow, I reckon Pharo has already come a long way since I started following > the Smalltalk community ... I know some people like them but I cringed at > the pastel colored screens. Â Pharo's biggest problem is still bad UX i.e. > User eXperience. Â The latest Nautilus browser is only marginally better than > the alternatives, but it hasn't really evolved much from the browsers from > the 70's. Â From a usability point of view, Pharo and its browsers are not > intuitive and don't look cool enough to attract more new blood and increase > its popularity. > Well, cool is not synonim of useful. But i agree: cool and useful is way better than just useful or just cool. > Having said that, I am actually more interested to see things like > SmalltalkHub launched and whatever can be done to make web app development > in Smalltalk easier with things like Amber Smalltalk. Â People want to make > web apps and finding somewhere cheap to host your stuff is much easier when > using RoR, Django or whatever rather than Seaside, AIDA or Iliad. > > -- > View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Increase-populatity-of-Pharo-by-doing-some-Killer-Ope… > Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.

March 9, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] Increase populatity of Pharo by doing some Killer-OpenSource-Tools

by Igor Stasenko

On 9 March 2012 18:49, Camillo Bruni <camillobruni(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > On 2012-03-09, at 17:11, Torsten Bergmann wrote: > >> Hi Stefan, >> >> I'm not sure if it is a killer app that is required to get more >> visibility for Pharo or a better adoption of Smalltalk. >> >> We already have nice open-source apps ranging from Seaside, Pier, >> Moose, Swiki, ... up to other Smalltalk apps that are sucessfull >> also in business life. >> >> Look at JPMorgans Kapital project done in VW, other big Smalltalk >> projects or the Pharo success stories [2] meanwhile known to the world. >> Still Smalltalk is very unknown among developers ... > > we need visibility... the image as a sole source does not help here, > most programmers like files and scripts and their common editors :) > every time i hear sentences about "my favorite editor" i thinking about creating a new text editor project and with a name "WriteOwn". WriteOwn text editor. > - use common tools (github for instance will be available soon on Pharo) > - get indexable documentation (google doesn't seem to like squeaksource that much) :) > - we need better system integration (accessing ENV vars and program args is still a bit messy in Pharo) > - we need an embeddable VM (I guess that is also on the way :)) > >> I agree with Dave Thomas who said that the object abstraction is too >> complex for the majority of programmers. [1] >> Most people are happy with (boring) CRUD applications and >> I doubt a killer app implemented in Smalltalk will change this. >> Most of them see no need for switching from Java, C#, ... > > look at ruby with ruby on rails, people seem to like it despite the heavy > meta programming used in it > > => we need a decent scripting api (almost there with coral) > >> Not that I would not want to see Trac/Bugzilla/... one-click replacements >> done in Smalltalk - but building them will eat up our resources to build >> something that should be even better than current Smalltalks. > > that might be true, but looking at pharo I seem we still lack some > basic tools of a modern programming language. However we made a massive > progress over the last years ;) > >> I doubt that Pharo will become the "next big thing". I'm not >> sad about that since most hype technologies will easily fade away >> when the next hype comes up. >> >> Maybe you remember auctomatic.com - these guys have built an app >> with Seaside and sold the company for lots of money. So it must >> have been a killer app. >> >> One of them (Patrick) shares some nice thoughts on his >> page [3] - if you replace "auctomatic" with Pharo and "ebay" >> with one of the mainstream technologies like Java it is an >> interesting guide for a future of Pharo too. >> Especially regarding internationalization which is I think >> an interesting area to get more people into Smalltalk. >> >> Bye >> Torsten >> >> >> [1] http://smalltalk-bob.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-needs-objects.html >> [2] http://www.pharo-project.org/about/success-stories >> [3] http://patrickcollison.com/blog/2009/10/surprises >> >> -- >> Empfehlen Sie GMX DSL Ihren Freunden und Bekannten und wir >> belohnen Sie mit bis zu 50,- Euro! https://freundschaftswerbung.gmx.de >> > > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.

March 9, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] Increase populatity of Pharo by doing some Killer-OpenSource-Tools

by Igor Stasenko

On 9 March 2012 18:40, Stefan Krecher <stefan.krecher(a)googlemail.com> wrote: > Am 9. MÃ¤rz 2012 17:24 schrieb Frank Shearar <frank.shearar(a)gmail.com>: >> Um. That makes no sense. Pharo developers should develop Pharo, not >> something that merely uses Pharo. Or: "Pharo's not being developed >> fast enough! Let's make the devs work on something else!" > > if one of the main goals of the pharo-team would be something like > "increase the popularity of pharo", there would be no problem with > pharo-developers working on some project using pharo. And i guess that > everybody here would like to see pharo more popular and everybody is > working somehow on reaching this goal - but it is no bundled community > action with one collective goal. > But of course you are right - pharo-devs should develop pharo an make > it even better - so other people can write great software with it. > Well, IMO, popularity is wrong objective. Look at the real world: we have pop stars like Britney Spears. So, does it makes me my life better? I really doubt it. Or we having a popular stuff like iStuff.. and then we have developers which cannot even use Pharo for iStuff without ultimate permission of Apple. > regards, > Stefan > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.

March 9, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] Increase populatity of Pharo by doing some Killer-OpenSource-Tools

by Geert Claes

Ok, I have succumbed and will post a quick reply ... although I realize this looks like one of those threads where a lot of people say "we need to do this ... or ... we need to do what xyz does" and as Stef often - and rightly so - says, don't just talk but roll up your sleeves and do something :) Anyhow, I reckon Pharo has already come a long way since I started following the Smalltalk community ... I know some people like them but I cringed at the pastel colored screens. Pharo's biggest problem is still bad UX i.e. User eXperience. The latest Nautilus browser is only marginally better than the alternatives, but it hasn't really evolved much from the browsers from the 70's. From a usability point of view, Pharo and its browsers are not intuitive and don't look cool enough to attract more new blood and increase its popularity. Having said that, I am actually more interested to see things like SmalltalkHub launched and whatever can be done to make web app development in Smalltalk easier with things like Amber Smalltalk. People want to make web apps and finding somewhere cheap to host your stuff is much easier when using RoR, Django or whatever rather than Seaside, AIDA or Iliad. -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Increase-populatity-of-Pharo-by-doing-some-Killer-Ope… Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

March 9, 2012

[Pharo-project] [OT] OOP survey

by NicolÃ¡s Paez

Hi folks, I am collecting information about the languages used to teach Object-Oriented Programming. This is part of an academic research at Fiuba <http://www.fi.uba.ar/> whose results will be published at the University website at not cost. So if you want to collaborate it will take you less than 2 minutes to fill the survey (there are just 5 questions). Here is the link to the survey: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?pli=1&formkey=dHhOMmJnZmZfYmVY… And it would be great if you can forward it to your colleagues. Thanks! NicoPaez Nico. blog: nicopaez.wordpress.com

March 9, 2012

[Pharo-project] All Pharo Kernel jobs working

by Pavel Krivanek

Hi, I created an ad-hoc fix of Pharo Kernel Tests job, pushed small fix of Pharo Kernel Seaside and re-enabled Pharo Kernel Report. So all the Pharo Kernel Jenkins jobs are in working order. https://ci.lille.inria.fr/pharo/view/Pharo-Kernel/ Cheers, -- Pavel

March 9, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] Increase populatity of Pharo by doing some Killer-OpenSource-Tools

by Sebastian Sastre

I generalized the problem (because is not a problem exclusive to our community) so here I wrote a couple of thoughts on the subject: Money and Popularity are Distractions [1] about abstractions: is hard for most because education is broken. People is indoctrinated to obey and shut up instead of creating new better systems (that require Systemic Thinking, which will make natural use of abstraction among many other skills). Education is being revolutionized worldwide as we speak so I say we shouldn't worry about it, Smalltalk is brain-ergonomic-computing, all we have to do is to keep supporting that revolution with our great tool made even better (Hint: usability glitches). about big businesses: Cows eat grass, flies eat ... and most people is only smart enough to be impressed by big quantities of money. So yes, if we have enough huge cases of startups being bought by google (or whatever exit strategy that makes investors rich) our popularity will grow. But, as I mention in that post, it's only a distraction. A good one once it happens, there is no question about it, but let things flow. We are not there yet. Don't let the charming money game distract you. Unless you are right now in the subgroup of the 1% that's a VC or an angel or a superangel, you are not one of those players. If you are, that's great, help smalltalkers to improve their entrepreneurial skills (they could be great tech co-founders). So.. Usability and reliability are the areas we need to be serious about. Usability of what? Usability of a tool that provides a smooth experience to be a startup hero. Trust this: people will be infinitely hungry of such a tool. So let's meditate on the bumps we are providing now to people trying to "startupize" some problems with Pharo. cheers sebastian o/ PS: also let's think about the iOS market. If any professional has a paying client asking for an iPad application he/she can't currently do it with Pharo. There is a big money market right there (in the middle of a lagging economy) and we are not doing enough about it? how smart is that? PSS: when I talk on startups I mean democratized solutions. Don't think only on startups that got invested. Bootstrappers also counts (actually, they have even more moral credit). [1] http://sebastianconcept.com/brandIt/money-and-popularity-are-distractions On Mar 9, 2012, at 1:11 PM, Torsten Bergmann wrote: > Hi Stefan, > > I'm not sure if it is a killer app that is required to get more > visibility for Pharo or a better adoption of Smalltalk. > > We already have nice open-source apps ranging from Seaside, Pier, > Moose, Swiki, ... up to other Smalltalk apps that are sucessfull > also in business life. > > Look at JPMorgans Kapital project done in VW, other big Smalltalk > projects or the Pharo success stories [2] meanwhile known to the world. > Still Smalltalk is very unknown among developers ... > > I agree with Dave Thomas who said that the object abstraction is too > complex for the majority of programmers. [1] > Most people are happy with (boring) CRUD applications and > I doubt a killer app implemented in Smalltalk will change this. > Most of them see no need for switching from Java, C#, ... > > Not that I would not want to see Trac/Bugzilla/... one-click replacements > done in Smalltalk - but building them will eat up our resources to build > something that should be even better than current Smalltalks. > > I doubt that Pharo will become the "next big thing". I'm not > sad about that since most hype technologies will easily fade away > when the next hype comes up. > > Maybe you remember auctomatic.com - these guys have built an app > with Seaside and sold the company for lots of money. So it must > have been a killer app. > > One of them (Patrick) shares some nice thoughts on his > page [3] - if you replace "auctomatic" with Pharo and "ebay" > with one of the mainstream technologies like Java it is an > interesting guide for a future of Pharo too. > Especially regarding internationalization which is I think > an interesting area to get more people into Smalltalk. > > Bye > Torsten > > > [1] http://smalltalk-bob.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-needs-objects.html > [2] http://www.pharo-project.org/about/success-stories > [3] http://patrickcollison.com/blog/2009/10/surprises > > -- > Empfehlen Sie GMX DSL Ihren Freunden und Bekannten und wir > belohnen Sie mit bis zu 50,- Euro! https://freundschaftswerbung.gmx.de >

March 9, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] GsoC - Nautilus Hazelnut

by Edgar J. De Cleene

On 3/9/12 11:48 AM, "Benjamin" <benjamin.vanryseghem.pharo(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Project name : Hazelnut > Level (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) : Advanced > Possible Mentor : Stephane Ducasse ? > > Description : Hazelnut is part of the Seed project which goal is to > bootstrap the system. > Technical Details : Ensure the validity of the created kernel and also > improved the serialization mechanism. The goal is to clarify and ensure a > creation mechanism which can be applied to a dynamically generated kernel or > to a statically describe kernel as well. > Benefits to the Student : Deep understanding of the system layouts, of the > kernel definition, of the meta model and the reflexivity of the system. The > student will also learn the object format and the basic of the VM use. > Benefits to the Community : The community will gain a way to bootstrap a > new fresh kernel from an existing image or from a kernel description. It could > also be used to generate minimal kernel used for embedded technology. I start to play with Seed a week ago and have experience with reduced images. Like to be involved with this project in any place you let me. Edgar

March 9, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] more Nautilus feed back

by Igor Stasenko

On 9 March 2012 13:27, Helene Bilbo <thereluctantprogrammer(a)fastmail.fm> wrote: > > Igor Stasenko wrote >> >> so then go finish arts and design schools (min 5 years each). and only >> then you may get back and continue working on nautilus! Hurry up. :) >> >> I can also easily tell what i don't like in Nautilus. Much harder is >> to propose alternative. >> > So after finishing art school i propose a better UI in the attached drawing. > It gets rid of all Toggle-Buttons except one for the comments: > > http://forum.world.st/file/n4459175/nautilusui.jpg > Breadcrumbs!, I want breadcrumbsss!! And search bar. And back/forward buttons. And other custom stuff which others can put at toolbar via plugin mechanism. > Good Luck with the exams, Helene. > > > -- > View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/more-Nautilus-feed-back-tp4457416p4459175.html > Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.

March 9, 2012

Re: [Pharo-project] GsoC - Nautilus Hazelnut

by Igor Stasenko

On 9 March 2012 15:48, Benjamin <benjamin.vanryseghem.pharo(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Project name Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : Nautilus > Level (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) Â Â Â Â : Intermediate > Possible Mentor Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : Stephane Ducasse ? > > Description Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : Nautilus is a new browser based on the latests system meta model tools like RPackage or Ring. The goal is to ensure this browser has the stability and all the features required to become the next standard browser. > Technical Details Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : Nautilus may be improved on different levels: fixing last bugs, improve the way the UI widget are defined to be able to easily change the UI representation, create some plugins for metrics, better traits integration, better icons. Morphic may have to be improved > Benefits to the Student Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : The student will learn and use the latests infrastructure tools, the different Morphic's layers. He will also participate to a tool which is used and will be. > Benefits to the Community Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : The community will gain a more stable and up to date default browser. > > > > Project name Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : Hazelnut > Level (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) Â Â Â Â : Advanced > Possible Mentor Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : Stephane Ducasse ? > > Description Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : Hazelnut is part of the Seed project which goal is to bootstrap the system. > Technical Details Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : Ensure the validity of the created kernel and also improved the serialization mechanism. The goal is to clarify and ensure a creation mechanism which can be applied to a dynamically generated kernel or to a statically describe kernel as well. > Benefits to the Student Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : Deep understanding of the system layouts, of the kernel definition, of the meta model and the reflexivity of the system. The student will also learn the object format and the basic of the VM use. > Benefits to the Community Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â : The community will gain a way to bootstrap a new fresh kernel from an existing image or from a kernel description. It could also be used to generate minimal kernel used for embedded technology. > > > > Ben i would put Hazelnut to Intermediate level. It is not that complex :) -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.

March 9, 2012