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

Re: [Pharo-dev] playground vs workspace

by kilon alios

"Hi Kilon, Please, let's get positive :)." I dont believe in being positive or negative can help. I think being open minded and seeing and exploring problems is far more reliable way to improve. I also believe that reporting a real problem is far more beneficial to a community than hiding it away. "If it's not enough or not in the right place, you have to get specific and we can address those problems, but you cannot say that there is no documentation because that is simply not true." I never said there is no documentation about the GT tools, I said there is no official documentation, no chapter on PBE or Pharo for the Enterprise. "Finally, fourthâ¦ we as a community has this tendency of start talking of A and end talking of Z. " Lets talk about me, I have fully answered the question and I was never offtopic. The question was should Playground renamed to workspace, my answer was no . why ? because there is no official documentation about it and it should not be in the Pharo 4 image even if that is an unstable WIP image. If that is not an ontopic answer then I have no clue what it is. In any case I can clearly see there is a vast gap between how I think coding should be done and what people contributing to Pharo think. Obviously community is about democracy or should be and if people think that Pharo goes toward a very good direction I have no issue with that, we all make our choices and have our own opinions.

Dec. 8, 2014

[ANN] RProjectConnector V1.0

by Blondeau Vincent

Hello everyone, I am glad to announce the first version of the RProjectConnector, a binding between Pharo and R using NativeBoost. You can now call directly your R methods from Pharo: data := (1 to: 1000) collect: #yourself. res := (#acf asRFunctionWith: {data}) eval To use it, you should copy the R libraries near the Pharo VM (see the documentation on SmalltalkHub to see how to proceed) and Gofer it smalltalkhubUser: 'VincentBlondeau' project: 'RProjectConnector'; configuration; loadStable Don't forget to relaunch Pharo after the installation to be able to use the connector. The sources are available on Smalltalkhub: http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~VincentBlondeau/RProjectConnector if you want to participate, just ask me! Cheers, Vincent BLONDEAU ________________________________ Ce message et les pi?ces jointes sont confidentiels et r?serv?s ? l'usage exclusif de ses destinataires. Il peut ?galement ?tre prot?g? par le secret professionnel. Si vous recevez ce message par erreur, merci d'en avertir imm?diatement l'exp?diteur et de le d?truire. L'int?grit? du message ne pouvant ?tre assur?e sur Internet, la responsabilit? de Worldline ne pourra ?tre recherch?e quant au contenu de ce message. Bien que les meilleurs efforts soient faits pour maintenir cette transmission exempte de tout virus, l'exp?diteur ne donne aucune garantie ? cet ?gard et sa responsabilit? ne saurait ?tre recherch?e pour tout dommage r?sultant d'un virus transmis. This e-mail and the documents attached are confidential and intended solely for the addressee; it may also be privileged. If you receive this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately and destroy it. As its integrity cannot be secured on the Internet, the Worldline liability cannot be triggered for the message content. Although the sender endeavours to maintain a computer virus-free network, the sender does not warrant that this transmission is virus-free and will not be liable for any damages resulting from any virus transmitted.

Dec. 8, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] untypeable key combination

by Guillermo Polito

I think (I just think because I didn't write that class ^^) that class is the result of an unfinished refactor... On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 2:36 PM, stepharo <stepharo(a)free.fr> wrote: > > Le 7/12/14 12:21, Nicolai Hess a Ã©crit : > > We have a class KMUntypeableSingleKeyCombination >> this is used for key kombinations with >> tab >> arrow >> backspace .... >> >> This is useful for printing key kombinations like >> Ctrl+TAB >> >> "space" does not use the KMUntypeableSingleKeyCombination class, >> therefore >> a short cut like >> Character space shift asKeyCombination >> looks like >> " Shift + " >> >> shouldn't space use this class? >> And I find the name a little bit misleading, what is a untypeable key? >> The key is typeable, otherwise we couldn't use it. >> Renaming the class to KMUnprintableSingleKeyCombination >> isn't better, because we can print this keycombination. >> >> > +1 > >> >> nicolai >> >> > >

Dec. 8, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] playground vs workspace

by Nicolai Hess

Hi Doru, I do not understand exactly what the difference is or why you wouldn't call GTPlayground " a Workspace". As I think you are using GTPlayground very extensively: Do YOU use the Workspace at all ? Do YOU miss something in GTPlayground, where you would say: "Yes, only a workspace should do this". Nicolai 2014-12-08 7:18 GMT+01:00 Tudor Girba <tudor(a)tudorgirba.com>: > Hi, > > As you might see, the GTPlayground is called playground not workspace. The > main reason for this is that workspace implies the place where work is > done, and work is typically associated with creating code. > > This is not the intention of the workspace. > > Workspace also comes with a history that is associated with actual > implementations. While the current GTPlayground might appear to be similar > to the workspace, I think the way you can use the latter produces a > significant shift. > > Furthermore, I think the term playground is more inline with the idea of > "playing with live objects". And, in the future, the implementation will > likely evolve towards even more liveliness. > > It is for this reason that I would prefer that the World menu item gets > renamed to Playground. > > What do you think? > > Cheers, > Doru > > -- > www.tudorgirba.com > > "Every thing has its own flow" >

Dec. 8, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] playground vs workspace

by Tudor Girba

Hi, This was a long mail :). I tried to address your points below. On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 10:55 AM, Torsten Bergmann <astares(a)gmx.de> wrote: > I would go the opposite direction and rename the "Playground" window to > "Workspace". > > Several reasons: > > 1. "Playground" reminds me too much on toyish things (and we had too > much of this > in the past already, thats why Pharo was forked). The windows > intention is to be > used for both: prototyping and serious stuff. > Yes, I agree that it is where work can happen. But, it is not the only place where work happens: the debugger or the code is also where work happens :). This is why I find the workspace term misleading. And Playground would match so well the marketing term of "playing with live objects". You might say that Playground is not the only place where people can play with objects, but 2. "Workspace" depicts the area where you usually work and this term is > IMHO much much > better suited. It is also a common concept known not only in > Smalltalk but also > other IDE's. > Not all. Swift calls it Playground (yes, they copied us ;)) 3. I do not understand where the significant shift is (that justifies a > new name) as > we had similar tools already in the past. Basically it is a script > space merged with > an inspector, so more an evolution instead of a revolution. > > (This does not mean that I'm not happy that the GT tools are now in > and provide > such an easy to use extensibility!) > You are looking at it from a technical point of view. Yes, it's just a merge of two features, but it is the end experience that is so much different. That is why I think we have conceptually a different solution than we ever had. > 3. There is a "Workspace open" but no "Playground open" possibility. > I think I do not get this point. What do you mean? > 4. Having two separate tools "Workspace" and "Playground" with nearly > similar > goals (write scripts and inspect objects) would be confusing for > newbees. > > Maybe we could set up a "community voting" somewhere. > Perhaps. Other things I would like to see: > ================================= > A. Change to "double clicking" behavior instead of "single clicking" > when diving > deeper into the iVars of objects. > > This would allow to use it as a normal inspector first without having > directly more and more panes opening to the right. > > Anytime I start with a script in the initial code pane it is moving > away > when using "Do it and go" and clicking on my objects iVars in the > right > list view. > > With a "double click" the user could decide hisself if he just wants > to select > (single click to do any other menu item action) or dive deeper into > the > object (double click). > The double click is not a good solution because it would interfere with several use cases. One of them is the ability to go through a list and see the preview to the right. If you would have to double-click or press Enter to get the preview, it would be too hard. I am considering though to allow a pseudo-mode and trigger the selection only when Cmd is pressed, but that is tricky because it can conflict with multiple selections. Another thing we consider is to freeze the first pane. This will likely solve most problems. B. Possibility to have splitters between the opened panes because > sometimes the > area is not wide enough. > This is hard to do because having full panes visible at all times (no possibility of seeing half of a pane) is more important. I do not have a solution to marry both of these concerns. > C. When several windows are open the "playgrounds" can not be > distinguished by > title in the world tool bar. > > Note that when I save a workspace contents the title of the workspace > window > is changed to the *.ws file. > Point taken. This is an area of work that is not finished yet. > D. Change the initial tab name to something more meaninful (related to > C). > Or use a better timestamp representation as the current precision. As > a human > I do not distinguish up to milliseconds when opening such a window. > Maybe up to > seconds is enough. > > Using a tab is questionable by itself - we never have more than one > on the > initial code pane... > This is indeed another area that is not yet quite finished. The time stamp shows the actual name of the file from the play-cache folder. It is not about precision. It is about uniqueness. We could imagine a different scheme that provide a counter, but I do not think this would be any better. We have a "tab" because I would like to get to having multiple playgrounds in the same window. Likely, we should end up being able to change the name of that playground and this will transparently map to a file that will be placed in another dedicated folder (I think of calling it play-stash). At that moment, having the technical label as it is now will be useful to easily distinguish between explicitly labelled and unlabelled playground pages. But, this part clearly needs more work. > E. Easily saving in the cloud is nice - but I would ask the user before > sending > it. This prevents wrong usage by accidentially clicking. > > Think of usage in a business scenario where you may work with > confidential > data that would otherwise be posted on the web... > Good point! Can you add a bug issue for this? Cheers, Doru > > Thanks > T. > > > > > > > > > > -- www.tudorgirba.com "Every thing has its own flow"

Dec. 8, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] Announcements & inter-thread communication

by stepharo

Thanks for your questions. My take is - I would minimize thread and fork. I have the feeling that some people forgot or never knew that when we fork a process we have to pay attention to sync points and race condition. - About Announcements - Ideally we would like to remove the changed:/update: and replace it by annoucements. Now it will take time because the widgets are not expecting Annoucements. Now to your point! "Now you might say that the programmer should know enough about the structure of their threaded code to wrap the action in as critical section, but Announcements are a DECOUPLING mechanism, and maybe a THIRD PARTY library subscribes to an Announcement that later someone else wraps in a fork, and no-one notices possible race conditions created." Yes!!! I like your ideas: " With this arrangement, a third party subscribed to someone else's announcement, that is quietly changed to be wrapped by forked thread, the third party's code now fails EARLY and OBVIOUS, rather than letting subtle race conditions occur at random times. " This Le 5/12/14 22:10, Ben Coman a Ã©crit : > _BACKGROUND_ > > In relation to... > https://pharo.fogbugz.com/default.asp?13182 > "Refactor MCFileRepositoryInspector >> versionSearchAccept:" > > I am reviewing... > https://pharo.fogbugz.com/default.asp?13007 > "Cannot integrate a slice with monticello (red square in the UI)" > > and in general considering how Monticello uses multiple threads to > allow you to type in the filter while its downloading info from the > remote repository (which would be good to have more of this sort thing). > > Looking back at build 30814 just prior to slice 13007 being integrated, > I notice that MCFileRepositoryInspector>>setRepository:workingCopy: [1] > forks and sends #refresh, which sends #changed: #packageList. > > and MCFileRepositoryInspector>>packageSearchAccept: [2] > also forks and sends #changed: #packageList > > So there were three threads (including UI [3]) modifying object state, > which was compounded by #packageList method doing a lot of work. > Issue 13007 worked around this by moving the work of #packageList out > to #packageListUpdate, and moved the #changed: sends from [1] & [2] > also out into #packageListUpdate (and wrapped in a #defer:). > > > _QUESTIONS_ > > Now I am considering doing the same for issue 13182 > #versionSearchAccept:, and considering Pharo's goal is to replace all > Dependents/#changed: mechanisms with Announcements. > > 1. So I am wondering if that would be a better direction to address this? > > Then I wonder about how Announcements interact with threads. I see > that SubscriptionRegistry>>deliver: #protect's the generation of > /interestedSubscriptions/, but the actual announcement delivery occurs > in the open, in AnnoucemenSubscription>>delvier:, > in the sender's thread. > > So for an example... > > action := [ :it | self inform: 'removing child'.]. > announcer on: RemoveChild do: action. > > /action/ might be executed from different concurrent threads. > > Now you might say that the programmer should know enough about the > structure of their threaded code to wrap the action in as critical > section, but Announcements are a DECOUPLING mechanism, and maybe a > THIRD PARTY library subscribes to an Announcement that later someone > else wraps in a fork, and no-one notices possible race conditions > created. > > 2. So, is there something reasonable we can do to make the > common/easier/safer single-threaded case the default, and make people > work a bit harder to shoot themselves in the foot with multiple threads? > > We could introduce Announcer>>onOtherThread:do: > with the purpose of making use of inter-thread announcements more > explicit in a self documenting way. > > Announcements accidentally passed between threads to Announcer>>on:do: > would generate an exception advising "use #onOtherThread:do: " > with the reasonable expectation that use of #onOtherThread:do: > would follow the pattern... > > announcer onOtherThread: RemoveChild do: [ :it | > myMutex critical: [ self inform: 'removing child' ]. > ]. > > With this arrangement, a third party subscribed to someone else's > announcement, that is quietly changed to be wrapped by forked thread, > the third party's code now fails EARLY and OBVIOUS, rather than > letting subtle race conditions occur at random times. > > > _PROPOSED IMPLEMENTATION_ > > "------------------" > > Announcer>>subscribe: anAnnouncementClass do: aValuable > ^ registry add: ( > AnnouncementSubscription new > announcer: self; > process: Processor activeProcess > announcementClass: anAnnouncementClass; > valuable: aValuable) > "------------------" > > AnnouncementSubscription>>deliver: anAnnouncement > process ~= Processor activeProcess ifTrue: [ > self error: [ 'Cross thread announcements should subscribe > using #onOtherThread:do: ' ]. > ^ (self handlesAnnouncement: anAnnouncement ) ifTrue: [ > [action cull: anAnnouncement cull: announcer] > on: UnhandledError fork: [:ex | ex pass ]] > "------------------" > > Announcer>>threadedSubscribe: anAnnouncementClass do: aValuable > ^ registry add: ( > ThreadedAnnouncementSubscription new > announcer: self; > process: Processor activeProcess > announcementClass: anAnnouncementClass; > valuable: aValuable) > "------------------" > > where ThreadedAnnouncementSubscription essentially functions the same > as the existing AnnoucementSubscription . > > > >

Dec. 8, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] RBSmalllintContext>>primitiveComputerLiterals

by stepharo

Le 5/12/14 08:40, Ben Coman a Ã©crit : > > I just noticed RBSmalllintContext>>primitiveComputerLiterals > doesn't seem to follow the typical pattern for that naming convention. > > Without digging to really understand it, I just wondered if it maybe > should be called #computeLiteralsForPrimitive, > or #basicComputerLiterals, or something else... basic > > cheers -ben > >

Dec. 8, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] playground vs workspace

by stepharo

Le 8/12/14 05:43, stepharo a Ã©crit : > Hi doru > > I would like to have playground be named playground and that we keep > "workspace" but I would like to change the name to "SimpleNoteEditor". Why because this is always good to have simple tools to read from? (I'm not talking about the current workspace implementation but the new one). I would like even try to learn something from Playground implementation because the tools is more advanced while I'm not afraid to learn from a simple tool. > I do not like the idea that we are all forced to use one single tools. > We are adults. > > Stef > >> Hi, >> >> As you might see, the GTPlayground is called playground not >> workspace. The main reason for this is that workspace implies the >> place where work is done, and work is typically associated with >> creating code. >> >> This is not the intention of the workspace. >> >> Workspace also comes with a history that is associated with actual >> implementations. While the current GTPlayground might appear to be >> similar to the workspace, I think the way you can use the latter >> produces a significant shift. >> >> Furthermore, I think the term playground is more inline with the idea >> of "playing with live objects". And, in the future, the >> implementation will likely evolve towards even more liveliness. >> >> It is for this reason that I would prefer that the World menu item >> gets renamed to Playground. >> >> What do you think? >> >> Cheers, >> Doru >> >> -- >> www.tudorgirba.com <http://www.tudorgirba.com> >> >> "Every thing has its own flow" >

Dec. 8, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] playground vs workspace

by stepharo

+1 And there is plenty of blog post to turn them into chapters. If everything we produce would have this documentation quality I would not be worried. Le 8/12/14 05:33, Sven Van Caekenberghe a Ã©crit : > More documentation is always better, but you can hardly accuse Doru from trying, he is making an excellent effort in explaining what he does and why, this is a lot of work, and I appreciate it very much. Note that he is also trying to convince others of alternative/new/experimental ideas, which is even harder. > > And apart from that, he (and his team) are not just talking, they write actual working code and make it available. Of course they get all sorts of feedback, that is why they do it, but please, please consider the amount of work and determination it costs to make all this real/useable and not just vapourware ! > > I have the utmost respect for what they are doing and how they are doing it. > > You (and other users) have a choice: you can keep using Pharo 3 and the tools there instead of going along with the development branch. Pharo 3 is meant for stable production use, it matches most of the current publications. > > There is pharo-users(a)lists.pharo.org for normal beginner discussions, most users should ask questions there, not the other way around as it is today. I read both and try to help anyone the best I can. > > Sven > >> On 08 Dec 2014, at 13:56, kilon alios <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> "But, those tools are already added. And they are documented on the humane-assessment.com blog, and this can serve as a strong basis for a more official documentation." >> >> my issue is not "when" but "whether" . If you want to wait out the release of Pharo 4 to make official documentation, thats fine by me . I take late documentation over no documentation, any day. >> >> The problem I see with Pharo and one factor I feel it may even lead to the demise of Pharo as a project is that we see new and very exciting sfuff added to Pharo like your tools, but the documentation part is lackaster to say the least. The real problem comes when the original author decides to abandon or not further develop his tools it becomes extremely difficult for new people to come in and contribute. The very fact that now we replace the old workspace with a new tool is the testament to this problem. I think the situation would be dramatically different if Worskpace was fully documented, both at the user level and developer level. Its afterall an extremely important tool for Pharo. If that was the case we would have seen a natural evolution of workspace which would have made Playground far less needed. >> >> So its not that I disagree just with you I disagree with the general management of Pharo that follows the mentality "let the new features in and we worry about the documentation later on". No , no and NO! >> >> I was recently asked by a newcomer to Pharo being a python developer himself whether he should invest in Pharo . He wanted my opinion because I have experience both in python and pharo . I was not suprised to find out that he struggled with the documentation and he was really reluctant to give Pharo a serious try. He loved the features and all that but his learning was a much bigger pain than his experience with python and other programming languages. I ended up recommending him to ask more question here in the mailing list and he replied he did not feel comfortable asking question that for him were "stupid". Can I blame him ? Of course not. He was not aware of many of the blog posts and other source of documentation that are not "official". >> >> Dont know who that person is and how important as a member would become for the Pharo community but I can clearly see his problems being common to anyone or almost anyone introduced to Pharo unless that person comes already with a Smalltalk background. >> >> What I do know is Pharo needs new people to come in and take it further and in order to do that we need to build a Pharo that is as inviting to newcomers as our abilities permits us to. Putting documentation as a second priority is a recipe to disaster. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > >

Dec. 8, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] playground vs workspace

by stepharo

Hi doru I would like to have playground be named playground and that we keep "workspace" but I would like to change the name to "SimpleNoteEditor". I do not like the idea that we are all forced to use one single tools. We are adults. Stef > Hi, > > As you might see, the GTPlayground is called playground not workspace. > The main reason for this is that workspace implies the place where > work is done, and work is typically associated with creating code. > > This is not the intention of the workspace. > > Workspace also comes with a history that is associated with actual > implementations. While the current GTPlayground might appear to be > similar to the workspace, I think the way you can use the latter > produces a significant shift. > > Furthermore, I think the term playground is more inline with the idea > of "playing with live objects". And, in the future, the implementation > will likely evolve towards even more liveliness. > > It is for this reason that I would prefer that the World menu item > gets renamed to Playground. > > What do you think? > > Cheers, > Doru > > -- > www.tudorgirba.com <http://www.tudorgirba.com> > > "Every thing has its own flow"

Dec. 8, 2014