October 2014 - Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-dev] Configurations and Github for a specialised configuration browswe

by Dale Henrichs

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 12:04 PM, kilon alios <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Thank you Dale, this is more simple than I expected. > > From what you linked it looks like by [:comitish] you mean the git branch > .Which in my case is master so it should be > > Metacello new > baseline: 'BaselineOfXXX'; > repository: 'github://kilon/phEphestos:master/' > get; > load. > > https://github.com/kilon/phEphestos > >From looking at your repo on githug, the expression would be: Metacello new baseline: 'Ephestos'; repository: 'github://kilon/phEphestos:master' get; load. A commitish is a branch, SHA or tag. Note also, that my example was wrong ... the 'BaselineOf' shouldn't be used in the baseline: argument, just the base name of the project. You also need to create a BaselineOfEphestos which specifies package load order. BaselineOfEphestos would be created as a subclass of BaselineOf and have a single method: baseline: spec <baseline> spec for: #pharo do: [ spec package: 'Ephestos' ]. Then the above expression would load the Epestos package. If you were to add another package, say EphestosTests, then you'd update the baseline to declare that EphestosTests requires Ephestos to be loaded first you'd edit the baseline: method: baseline: spec <baseline> spec for: #pharo do: [ spec package: 'Ephestos'; package: 'EphestosTests' with: [ spec requires: #( 'Ephestos' ) ] ]. You commit the BaselineOf along with the rest of the packages for your project ... For more information see the Metacello chapter in Pharo by Example... Dale

Oct. 21, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] Spec Understandability

by kilon alios

> > >> I didn't check but I wonder how they perform with resizing layouts? Do > they use spacers? Do they use constraints? > > >> >> I don't know/ remember for the other 2 (I have used them a couple of times long time ago) but Lazarus is basically an open source recreation of Delphi so those are pretty standard features. Even the standard library of Delphi has been ported to Lazarus / Free Pascal and it directly support specific Delphi versions. What you describe are standard features for most if not all GUI designers anyway. In Delphi I vaguely remember they were called anchors, you could pin them on a specific layout or choose sides or pin them in absolute positions though the last option was the least desirable if you wanted an easily resizable interface but overall you had tons of options. I remember the Delphi ("Mastering Delphi 6") book have once bought around 1000 pages , I still have it with me, 300 pages was the designer itself. But I dont count in the overall architecture where everything worked with drag and drop. So basically if you wanted to add a database engine inside your app , the engine was represented as a GUI button you drag and drop on top of the form of your app like any other GUI element but of course it was not visible when you run the app. Delphi is minimising code this way which is paradigm that Lazarus follows very closely too. So the designer went and still is going far beyond to just designing GUIs. Of course I dont expect something of such power in Pharo, actually not even Visual Studio has been able to compete with Delphi in RAD (Rapid Application Development) or even its main competitor Visual Basic. Borland was very powerful and quite well funded company with very big experience on programming languages and IDEs. Unfortunately like Visual Basic they lost traction when Java came out and Delphi was sold to a much smaller company. But still Delphi is quite popular. On the other hand modern IDEs do have many of these features. I was mainly talking about basic GUI designers. Draging , droping, resizing, setting layouts and constraints and at least having access to basic widgets for fast creation of GUI is absolute essential for a GUI based IDE like Pharo. You can't work as fast with code for GUI design. Its very slow and this is why GUI designers have been so popular and considered standard practice.

Oct. 21, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] Spec Understandability

by Nicolai Hess

2014-10-21 14:20 GMT+02:00 kilon alios <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com>: > I may have but then halos have been abandoned in pharo at least > functionality wise , I have not seen any improvement to them from when I > started using Squeak 2 years ago and if I remember there were once a time > you had to enable them in pharo settings. > > Also both a gui builder for squeak and another for pharo have been > abandonware . > abandoned by developers or users? > So it looks pharo is not doing well on GUI front especially when it has to > compete with gui designers in visual basic, visual studio, QT, GTK and many > more. > > more important than a gui designer is actually a gui library/toolkit. glamour, spec, athens, txtext, morph cleanup ... I think pharo does a great job on the GUI front.

Oct. 21, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] Spec Understandability

by HernÃ¡n Morales Durand

2014-10-21 15:20 GMT-03:00 kilon alios <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com>: > Why are you saying that. You can get halos on any morph, just halos do not >> show up when you do not want them. >> > > I am saying because of my experience with halos , I have not seen anything > new added to them or improved the last 2 years I am using Pharo. > > Did you ever look at the code of Halos? Halos are not defined per Morph >> but in a global tables. So we started to clean them. >> > > No why would I need to looks at the code of halos ? I am its user not its > developer. It great you clean the code of Halos but what that means to me > as user ? Not much I am afraid. > > Do you think that spec is nothing in terms of dev. Give me 1/1000 of >> the ressources put on one of this project and we will have a real UIBuilder. >> >> Stef >> >> > Thats the problem I see many very good projects like Spec , PharoLauncher, > Pillar, AsmJit, Nativeboost , Athens , Opal and the list goes on and on. > But I see no interest in having a UIBuilder. Apparently GUI designers are > very important for most IDEs out there and judging from the developers > using them I would say also most developers but is not for Pharo. Why ? > > You say you want the resources of 1/1000 do you really say that you need > more than 10 developers to make a UIBuilder ? Here examples of very small > development teams that have produced capable IDEs with GUI designers > included > > Building a good GUI designer is one of those problems where you cannot "solve" with 1-2 unexperienced programmers (and I am not talking about of confident programmers, I mean real experience). Is not about just painting widgets, is about layered APIs, application integration, extending specialized widgets, how to integrate second party widgets, portability, usability, etc. It is a domain where you cannot support the whole learning curve of a post-doc, and expect to see successful results. In short: You have to hire experienced developers. > http://gambas.sourceforge.net/en/main.html > > http://www.geany.org/Main/Authors > > http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/ > > and the list goes on... I dont think that any of them had more than 1 -2 > and certainly they were not full time devs. Gambas alone is one developer > effort for the entire IDE, language, libraries, GUI designer etc etc. > > I didn't check but I wonder how they perform with resizing layouts? Do they use spacers? Do they use constraints? > Why such small development teams do dare to implement features that huge > IDEs do have ? Mainly because it usually comes down to small teams, take a > look at Visual Basic for example, I was reading its history recently and > found out that VB was no Microsoft invention (surprise - surprise) but > there was actually a very small company that create it as a product that > then they were hired from Microsoft. Delphi has a small development team as > well, actually it was single developer that leaded the effort and was > mainly responsible for its creation. > > So add this to one of my ranting and one of my complains. I love spec , I > love nativeboost , I love Playground and new GT tools but none of these > will ever start to compete with the usefulness of having a GUI designer > when up to 50% of a modern GUI based apps code is creating and managing > that GUI. > > The problem with Pharo's GUI designer is not that it sucks, its > undocumented , it severely lacks in features. But that it simple does not > exist. And without good GUI designer and an undocumented GUI API my remark > that on the GUI front Pharo is not in a good state is as honest as it can > be. > > Yes, and I prefer not having a GUI builder than having a bad one. > On the other hand on other fronts, like web interfacing, databases, > calling c libraries , vector graphics, unicode , true type fonts, JIT VM > even 64 bit Pharo has made a lot more significant progress. So apparently > Pharo resources wise seems to do great. Actually I am impressed how fast it > progress forward , its amazing. >

Oct. 21, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] Configurations and Github for a specialised configuration browswe

by kilon alios

Thank you Dale, this is more simple than I expected. >From what you linked it looks like by [:comitish] you mean the git branch .Which in my case is master so it should be Metacello new baseline: 'BaselineOfXXX'; repository: 'github://kilon/phEphestos:master/' get; load. https://github.com/kilon/phEphestos On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 9:52 PM, Dale Henrichs < dale.henrichs(a)gemtalksystems.com> wrote: > Kilon, > > You can use an expression like the following to load projects directly > from github using Metacello 1.0.0-beta.32.16: > > Metacello new > baseline: 'BaselineOfXXX'; > repository: 'github://<user name>/<project name>[:comitish]/<path to > filetree repo>' > get; > load. > > there are some examples of Seaside load expressions here[1]. Whenever you > use the `get` command, the github repo is refreshed from github. The `load` > loads directly from the local github cache for the project. > > Dale > > [1] https://github.com/GsDevKit/Seaside31#seaside31 > > > > On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 11:33 AM, kilon alios <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > >> So I am so happy with how Pharo works with Github, that I decided to even >> port my configurations there and I also decided to create a small >> configuration browser which will subclass the existing configuration >> browser for installing tools for my project Ephestos so I dont have to >> pollute the existing configuration projects with all my sub-projects. >> >> In sort I want to host configurations to Github similarly to how >> MetaRepos are host in Smalltalkhub. I want the user to be able to install >> those configurations without a need to install git >> >> I asked this I think before and I was told how to, but it was part of >> another thread and it got lost inside my email abyss. >> >> So How I do that ? >> > >

Oct. 21, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] Configurations and Github for a specialised configuration browswe

by Dale Henrichs

Kilon, You can use an expression like the following to load projects directly from github using Metacello 1.0.0-beta.32.16: Metacello new baseline: 'BaselineOfXXX'; repository: 'github://<user name>/<project name>[:comitish]/<path to filetree repo>' get; load. there are some examples of Seaside load expressions here[1]. Whenever you use the `get` command, the github repo is refreshed from github. The `load` loads directly from the local github cache for the project. Dale [1] https://github.com/GsDevKit/Seaside31#seaside31 On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 11:33 AM, kilon alios <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com> wrote: > So I am so happy with how Pharo works with Github, that I decided to even > port my configurations there and I also decided to create a small > configuration browser which will subclass the existing configuration > browser for installing tools for my project Ephestos so I dont have to > pollute the existing configuration projects with all my sub-projects. > > In sort I want to host configurations to Github similarly to how MetaRepos > are host in Smalltalkhub. I want the user to be able to install those > configurations without a need to install git > > I asked this I think before and I was told how to, but it was part of > another thread and it got lost inside my email abyss. > > So How I do that ? >

Oct. 21, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] Inspector for Opal IR -> source mapping

by kilon alios

great work Marcus , look like GT tools have a huge potential . Would that work with a debugger too ? On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 2:53 PM, Marcus Denker <marcus.denker(a)inria.fr> wrote: > This is now in update 317 > > > > > > > On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 11:19 AM, Marcus Denker <marcus.denker(a)inria.fr> > wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> There is now special inspector view for the Opal IR: >> >> >> <IRInspector.png> >> >> TODO: show how it maps to Bytecode and AST. >> >> https://pharo.fogbugz.com/f/cases/14241/add-a-inspector-view-for-IRMethods >> >> >> >

Oct. 21, 2014

Configurations and Github for a specialised configuration browswe

by kilon alios

So I am so happy with how Pharo works with Github, that I decided to even port my configurations there and I also decided to create a small configuration browser which will subclass the existing configuration browser for installing tools for my project Ephestos so I dont have to pollute the existing configuration projects with all my sub-projects. In sort I want to host configurations to Github similarly to how MetaRepos are host in Smalltalkhub. I want the user to be able to install those configurations without a need to install git I asked this I think before and I was told how to, but it was part of another thread and it got lost inside my email abyss. So How I do that ?

Oct. 21, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] Spec Understandability

by kilon alios

> > Why are you saying that. You can get halos on any morph, just halos do not > show up when you do not want them. > I am saying because of my experience with halos , I have not seen anything new added to them or improved the last 2 years I am using Pharo. Did you ever look at the code of Halos? Halos are not defined per Morph but > in a global tables. So we started to clean them. > No why would I need to looks at the code of halos ? I am its user not its developer. It great you clean the code of Halos but what that means to me as user ? Not much I am afraid. Do you think that spec is nothing in terms of dev. Give me 1/1000 of the > ressources put on one of this project and we will have a real UIBuilder. > > Stef > > Thats the problem I see many very good projects like Spec , PharoLauncher, Pillar, AsmJit, Nativeboost , Athens , Opal and the list goes on and on. But I see no interest in having a UIBuilder. Apparently GUI designers are very important for most IDEs out there and judging from the developers using them I would say also most developers but is not for Pharo. Why ? You say you want the resources of 1/1000 do you really say that you need more than 10 developers to make a UIBuilder ? Here examples of very small development teams that have produced capable IDEs with GUI designers included http://gambas.sourceforge.net/en/main.html http://www.geany.org/Main/Authors http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/ and the list goes on... I dont think that any of them had more than 1 -2 and certainly they were not full time devs. Gambas alone is one developer effort for the entire IDE, language, libraries, GUI designer etc etc. Why such small development teams do dare to implement features that huge IDEs do have ? Mainly because it usually comes down to small teams, take a look at Visual Basic for example, I was reading its history recently and found out that VB was no Microsoft invention (surprise - surprise) but there was actually a very small company that create it as a product that then they were hired from Microsoft. Delphi has a small development team as well, actually it was single developer that leaded the effort and was mainly responsible for its creation. So add this to one of my ranting and one of my complains. I love spec , I love nativeboost , I love Playground and new GT tools but none of these will ever start to compete with the usefulness of having a GUI designer when up to 50% of a modern GUI based apps code is creating and managing that GUI. The problem with Pharo's GUI designer is not that it sucks, its undocumented , it severely lacks in features. But that it simple does not exist. And without good GUI designer and an undocumented GUI API my remark that on the GUI front Pharo is not in a good state is as honest as it can be. On the other hand on other fronts, like web interfacing, databases, calling c libraries , vector graphics, unicode , true type fonts, JIT VM even 64 bit Pharo has made a lot more significant progress. So apparently Pharo resources wise seems to do great. Actually I am impressed how fast it progress forward , its amazing.

Oct. 21, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] Spec Understandability

by Ben Coman

Ralph Boland wrote: > > Besides error intractability, there is also a cost to understanding the > > system via exploration - a glorious benefit of Morphic. In the past, one > > only had to bring up halos on and inspect a button to see how to > duplicate > > its action. Now, to see what happens when one presses Versionner's > "Commit > > the project" button, you have to drill down in the inspector from > > aButtonXyzMorph -> model -> actionHolder -> value, a tedious and opaque > > process. > > > Of course, I'm not in any way against Spec or its goals, just sharing my > > unfolding experience using it. > > I'm running Squeak 4.0 but I assume my question still applies. If not, > other > Pharo users might want to know. > > I am not in the habit of using halos, not really sure what they are > for. But your description implies they are quite useful. > What does "bring up halos on and inspect a button to see how to duplicate > > its action" mean? Could you please describe in step by step detail. > > Ralph Boland Say you wanted your application to add a new package to the system. So you wonder how would to do that. Well... the system already does it! Right click in the first pane of the System Browser and you get a menu it <Add package...>. So why not just copy how that does it? But how do you look under the hood to see how it works you ask? Halos to the rescue! Hold the key combination to invoke halos and click on the menu item (varies between platforms, mac is <shift-option>, win is <shift-alt>) so that "ToggleMenuItemMorph" shows as the object type the halos are related to. On the right click the spanner "Debug" icon, and <inspect morph>. Scroll down looking for something that looks like a relevant method call (in this case 'target' contains [ target addPackge ]. #addPackage looks a likely candidate, so browse implementors and put a "self halt" at the top of the methods. Then back in the System Browser, invoke the <Add package...> menu item, and the debugger appears. Now you can trace through the execution of the system code that creates package. As an example, nothing beats real-life code. ----- Another use I have is sometimes to go World > System, use the Duplicate Halo on the <Enable halt/inspect once> menu item to drag it onto the background and using it as a button. HTH -ben

Oct. 21, 2014