- Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Sparta v1.1

by Dimitris Chloupis

Actually we dont, I am using the terminal to get and build my own images. Curl + use of startup scripts are more than enough. Simply , easy and straightforward. Pharo offers a super easy way to export any method as a command line argument. So there is literally no excuse. Pharo already offers a metacello argument so you are set to go on installing anything you want through the terminal in your image and also offers evaluation of smalltalk code as argument. But I prefer startup scripts, I have made a startup script that can detect the name of images and install different packages to them, you can do insane things with startup scripts actually. you can find my build setup here https://github.com/kilon/makePharo On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 10:06 AM phil(a)highoctane.be <phil(a)highoctane.be> wrote: > We need some easy to use gem-style installer on the command line. > > Pharo is perfectly usable for any kind of project provided energy is > poured in. > > Things are in flux, yes, and it is frustrating not to have it all perfect. > So what? If we weren't interested in wild things why would we be here after > all? > > Think long term: 10 years from now, improvements will have been massively > compounding (not to mention 20). > > I hope to have a huge win with Pharo business wise and be able to fund a > serious team. That's my dream. I am actively working on it. > > Pharo can stay relevant for that long I believe. I love the way it helps > me think. I love the fact that I can look everywhere I want. I love the > fact that this community has balls. I love to show the magic we can do with > it. If it all goes nowhere, I do not even mind as I have a damn awesome > time around here. > > Now, I also want a working text model. This feels like a kind of > psychological roadblock. Like a self sabotage. Let's put that dead rat on > the table and make something about it. > > I like Doru's Pillar editor. I guess the underlying engine will evolve to > make it faster. Great. Grafoscopio will also be a driving force there I > believe. Pharo can be superspeedy, no core problem. > > Sorry for the rant. > > Now back to promoting Pharo in front of Android/Angular/Java people this > afternoon at http://devfest.be (note that this is the 3rd time I show > Pharo/Amber there - they could kick me out but do not). > > /Phil > > > On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 8:12 PM, Dimitris Chloupis <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > > Actually you are wrong, its not hard to use C libraries from Pharo. UFFI > is not a restart, its a continuation of Nativeboost , they are very > similar. > > Pharo FFI, whether its the old FFI, Alien, Nativeboost or UFFI, is more or > less the same. In the end an FFI is defined by C syntax , Pharo UFFI > borrows the easy of use of Nativeboost that allows you to take c functions > definition and use them as they are with a simple copy paste. > > Pharo is also is based on very good integration with C , like Squeak can > output its code as C code via the Slang interface though it comes with some > limitations. > > The availability of C libraries to Pharo is a reflection of the community > size. Comparing with Ruby is very unfair , as Ruby is vastly more popular > (think in thousand times) , hence why you see so many C libraries wrapped > for Ruby. Of course python kicks Ruby ass kung fu style with its vastly > superior array of C wrapped libraries. > > The moment you decide to use an unpopular language as Pharo then if you > are not prepared to get your hands dirty and you expect things on your > plate like Ruby or Python , then its time to go back to Ruby or Python. > > Pharo is not in flux , its evolving, every new tool or library you see is > an evolution of something else. > > We dont need Gems for Pharo, Dale has done a great job with Metacello, its > easy to make a pharo project in git/github and have it install all pharo > code and built C libraries wrapped for Pharo. Just because people are not > in the habit of doing this does not mean its not super easy to be done. For > example AFAIK my project ChronosManager was one of the first project to > install from Catalog Browser not only its Pharo code but also , pngs and > audio files. I made even an autoupdate feature that pings my github repo to > see if there are any new commits and then if so it alerts the user and give > him the ability to download the update with a single click. All that is > metacello. > > Metacello is probably one of the best if not the best package distribution > systems out there. Definetly vastly better than Python's PyPi and Node'js > NPM . I cannot praise it enough and I have no problem criticising Pharo > when I must. Dale has done an amazing job, period. > > On the GUI front on the other hand, its messy, no doubt about it. Morphic > is huge, ugly and almost not maintained. Bloc is probably going to be the > next step. > > I think the issue here is that we dont have Arduino or Raspberry Pi guys. > Same story for my field, 3d graphics. There is a OpenGL wrapper and the > Wodden graphics engine and nothing else. I and the author of Woden are the > only people here interested into 3d graphics, he makes Woden, I have made a > bridge with Blender Python , for using Pharo to make Blender addons and I > am now in the process of making a bridge with Unreal Engine. > > I dont see why you would have an issue using Pharo from Raspberry Pi, we > already support SDL and you can even run Pharo with no GUI from the > terminal and export any Pharo method as a command line argument. My Python > socket bridge also showed me that is dead easy to connect Pharo with other > programming languages, in my case python , with just a few hundred lines of > code. Typical IPC. > > So there are no excuses for not using Pharo, from there on, it depends on > your specific needs and wants and taste. > > On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 7:05 PM Todd Blanchard <tblanchard(a)mac.com> wrote: > > > On Oct 21, 2016, at 07:30, Norbert Hartl <norbert(a)hartl.name> wrote: > > The current (!) complaint is rather based on the fact that everything > regarding the graphics backend, widget and tools appears sometimes as an > indefinite loop of reinventing stuff and improving and never get the job > done. Did I mention 64bit, UFFI,â¦ I'm glad all these topics are worked one > and I see a bright future if half of them are done. But then sometimes it > looks rather dark and the light at the end of the tunnel just went off :) > > > I feel you. > > I very much want to use Pharo to build devices from things like Raspberry > Pi's, iPhones, and Androids. I need access to native libraries. You can't > rewrite everything ever in Smalltalk and I don't really see a good reason > to. > > I've taken about ten years off from doing Smalltalk and I'm trying to get > back into it. My interest is piqued because I want to build nice custom > systems using the nifty new cheap goodies like Arduinos and RPis and it > seems tossing together a full screen Pharo image would be a great way to > build these appliances. In that time the story for how to call out to > native code has changed...twice. Everything is broken or in flux again. > > To me, it doesn't feel like there's any more platform to build apps on > than there was ten years ago and everything is still "just around the > corner". Pharo seem to be an experiment in building next generation > programming tools using deprecated last generation programming tools. I > don't see a lot of useful programs being built atop it - largely because > the base is constantly shifting about. > > It is disheartening that the Ruby guys can crank out gems with native > libraries that compile and work on every platform and pharo is still > constantly half broken with loadable native code "doable" but only with > great effort. > > I looked and Moz2D doesn't seem to have a light weight build for Raspberry > Pi. Is hitching Pharo to a heavy weight graphics library as a core > requirement a good idea? > > I'm starting to think maybe we need something like Gems for Pharo - > dynamically loadable libraries and resources - compiled at install if > necessary. > > >

Oct. 22, 2016

Re: [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Sparta v1.1

by phil＠highoctane.be

Dale, I looked at the docs but it was kind of a hunt as they were a bit kind of everywhere.\ * Book chapters (Pharo). This including preversions with more info than the published one * Google code wiki pages * Github * Other but can't even remember Is there an official place for all things Metacello? Metacello is great, especially with GTInspector so that we can see the directives etc. Compared to Maven pom.xml / parent and nexus/artefactory repos, it is easier to deal with I'd say. Phil On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 10:15 PM, Dale Henrichs < dale.henrichs(a)gemtalksystems.com> wrote: > > > On 10/21/2016 07:30 AM, Norbert Hartl wrote: > > Dale, > > Am 21.10.2016 um 16:12 schrieb Dale Henrichs < > dale.henrichs(a)gemtalksystems.com>: > > Norbert, > > I didn't realize that you were claiming that the new text model for Sparta > was (potentially) inferior. > > The other day you were expressing sadness about having to use the newer > version of Metacello (which is *only* 3 years old), so I assumed that you > were just being generally cranky about change:). > > it might be true it is a current topic for me. In my struggle to establish > a solid devlopment process I have sometimes the feeling it is impossible. > Especially when the new metacello thingie improves something I don't know > but at the same time I loose Versionner and the commandline handlers which > I know :) > The current (!) complaint is rather based on the fact that everything > regarding the graphics backend, widget and tools appears sometimes as an > indefinite loop of reinventing stuff and improving and never get the job > done. Did I mention 64bit, UFFI,â¦ I'm glad all these topics are worked one > and I see a bright future if half of them are done. But then sometimes it > looks rather dark and the light at the end of the tunnel just went off :) > > <dark mode off/> > > Okay, so you _are_ being generally cranky:) > > FWIW, I took great pains to ensure the the old way of using Metacello > continued to work the old (buggy) way while introducing the new (non-buggy) > way and that you should be happy to only start feeling the pain of this new > feature 3 years after it was introduced:) > > I should also note that I have no plans to remove the old way of doing > things, even though I don't recommend that anyone use the old way anymore > ... At GemStone we have users running on 20 year old versions of our > product, so I have an appreciation for "legacy users." > > If you are using filetree based projects then the only way to access them > is the new way... > > Regarding the "command-line", did you know that once you've loaded a > project using the new way, that you can re-load a project using the > following shorter smalltalk script: > > Metacello image baseline: 'AAA'; load > > I made a sweep through the docs a couple of years ago, but since no one > seemed to be interested in using the new API I found other things to do ... > and now that there's more interest in the "new way" I simply don't have the > time (right now) to make another pass through the docs ... so you can be > cranky about that too :) > > Dale > > > > > > >

Oct. 22, 2016

Re: [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Sparta v1.1

by phil＠highoctane.be

We need some easy to use gem-style installer on the command line. Pharo is perfectly usable for any kind of project provided energy is poured in. Things are in flux, yes, and it is frustrating not to have it all perfect. So what? If we weren't interested in wild things why would we be here after all? Think long term: 10 years from now, improvements will have been massively compounding (not to mention 20). I hope to have a huge win with Pharo business wise and be able to fund a serious team. That's my dream. I am actively working on it. Pharo can stay relevant for that long I believe. I love the way it helps me think. I love the fact that I can look everywhere I want. I love the fact that this community has balls. I love to show the magic we can do with it. If it all goes nowhere, I do not even mind as I have a damn awesome time around here. Now, I also want a working text model. This feels like a kind of psychological roadblock. Like a self sabotage. Let's put that dead rat on the table and make something about it. I like Doru's Pillar editor. I guess the underlying engine will evolve to make it faster. Great. Grafoscopio will also be a driving force there I believe. Pharo can be superspeedy, no core problem. Sorry for the rant. Now back to promoting Pharo in front of Android/Angular/Java people this afternoon at http://devfest.be (note that this is the 3rd time I show Pharo/Amber there - they could kick me out but do not). /Phil On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 8:12 PM, Dimitris Chloupis <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Actually you are wrong, its not hard to use C libraries from Pharo. UFFI > is not a restart, its a continuation of Nativeboost , they are very > similar. > > Pharo FFI, whether its the old FFI, Alien, Nativeboost or UFFI, is more or > less the same. In the end an FFI is defined by C syntax , Pharo UFFI > borrows the easy of use of Nativeboost that allows you to take c functions > definition and use them as they are with a simple copy paste. > > Pharo is also is based on very good integration with C , like Squeak can > output its code as C code via the Slang interface though it comes with some > limitations. > > The availability of C libraries to Pharo is a reflection of the community > size. Comparing with Ruby is very unfair , as Ruby is vastly more popular > (think in thousand times) , hence why you see so many C libraries wrapped > for Ruby. Of course python kicks Ruby ass kung fu style with its vastly > superior array of C wrapped libraries. > > The moment you decide to use an unpopular language as Pharo then if you > are not prepared to get your hands dirty and you expect things on your > plate like Ruby or Python , then its time to go back to Ruby or Python. > > Pharo is not in flux , its evolving, every new tool or library you see is > an evolution of something else. > > We dont need Gems for Pharo, Dale has done a great job with Metacello, its > easy to make a pharo project in git/github and have it install all pharo > code and built C libraries wrapped for Pharo. Just because people are not > in the habit of doing this does not mean its not super easy to be done. For > example AFAIK my project ChronosManager was one of the first project to > install from Catalog Browser not only its Pharo code but also , pngs and > audio files. I made even an autoupdate feature that pings my github repo to > see if there are any new commits and then if so it alerts the user and give > him the ability to download the update with a single click. All that is > metacello. > > Metacello is probably one of the best if not the best package distribution > systems out there. Definetly vastly better than Python's PyPi and Node'js > NPM . I cannot praise it enough and I have no problem criticising Pharo > when I must. Dale has done an amazing job, period. > > On the GUI front on the other hand, its messy, no doubt about it. Morphic > is huge, ugly and almost not maintained. Bloc is probably going to be the > next step. > > I think the issue here is that we dont have Arduino or Raspberry Pi guys. > Same story for my field, 3d graphics. There is a OpenGL wrapper and the > Wodden graphics engine and nothing else. I and the author of Woden are the > only people here interested into 3d graphics, he makes Woden, I have made a > bridge with Blender Python , for using Pharo to make Blender addons and I > am now in the process of making a bridge with Unreal Engine. > > I dont see why you would have an issue using Pharo from Raspberry Pi, we > already support SDL and you can even run Pharo with no GUI from the > terminal and export any Pharo method as a command line argument. My Python > socket bridge also showed me that is dead easy to connect Pharo with other > programming languages, in my case python , with just a few hundred lines of > code. Typical IPC. > > So there are no excuses for not using Pharo, from there on, it depends on > your specific needs and wants and taste. > > On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 7:05 PM Todd Blanchard <tblanchard(a)mac.com> wrote: > >> >> On Oct 21, 2016, at 07:30, Norbert Hartl <norbert(a)hartl.name> wrote: >> >> The current (!) complaint is rather based on the fact that everything >> regarding the graphics backend, widget and tools appears sometimes as an >> indefinite loop of reinventing stuff and improving and never get the job >> done. Did I mention 64bit, UFFI,â¦ I'm glad all these topics are worked one >> and I see a bright future if half of them are done. But then sometimes it >> looks rather dark and the light at the end of the tunnel just went off :) >> >> >> I feel you. >> >> I very much want to use Pharo to build devices from things like Raspberry >> Pi's, iPhones, and Androids. I need access to native libraries. You can't >> rewrite everything ever in Smalltalk and I don't really see a good reason >> to. >> >> I've taken about ten years off from doing Smalltalk and I'm trying to get >> back into it. My interest is piqued because I want to build nice custom >> systems using the nifty new cheap goodies like Arduinos and RPis and it >> seems tossing together a full screen Pharo image would be a great way to >> build these appliances. In that time the story for how to call out to >> native code has changed...twice. Everything is broken or in flux again. >> >> To me, it doesn't feel like there's any more platform to build apps on >> than there was ten years ago and everything is still "just around the >> corner". Pharo seem to be an experiment in building next generation >> programming tools using deprecated last generation programming tools. I >> don't see a lot of useful programs being built atop it - largely because >> the base is constantly shifting about. >> >> It is disheartening that the Ruby guys can crank out gems with native >> libraries that compile and work on every platform and pharo is still >> constantly half broken with loadable native code "doable" but only with >> great effort. >> >> I looked and Moz2D doesn't seem to have a light weight build for >> Raspberry Pi. Is hitching Pharo to a heavy weight graphics library as a >> core requirement a good idea? >> >> I'm starting to think maybe we need something like Gems for Pharo - >> dynamically loadable libraries and resources - compiled at install if >> necessary. >> >

Oct. 22, 2016

Re: [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Sparta v1.1

by Dale Henrichs

Right, but since there are known bugs in Sierra perhaps MozServices is hitting one of them. In our case we hit a bug in poll() which is a bit surprising and apparently the bug is hitting Apple's own curl implementation -- see discussion here[1]... Dale [1] https://github.com/curl/curl/issues/1057 On 10/21/2016 04:56 PM, Denis Kudriashov wrote: > Hi Dale > > 2016-10-22 1:20 GMT+02:00 Dale Henrichs > <dale.henrichs(a)gemtalksystems.com > <mailto:dale.henrichs@gemtalksystems.com>>: > > Denis, > > Sierra seems to have some issues. A couple weeks ago one of our > users ran into a problem with Pharo3.0 and Sierra > > Pharo works fine. When I first time load Sparta everything works well. > I am not saw any problem. > But it crashed when MozServices are starting second time where dll > call is failed (last log entry) > >

Oct. 22, 2016

Re: [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Sparta v1.1

by Denis Kudriashov

2016-10-21 16:20 GMT+02:00 Denis Kudriashov <dionisiydk(a)gmail.com>: > 2016-10-21 16:15 GMT+02:00 Tudor Girba <tudor(a)tudorgirba.com>: > >> > I would kindly ask for patience. What is perhaps less clear is that >> this editor is in the critical path of the GT project and we are committed >> to deliver an editor that actually works. We are still investigating >> different paths, both on the low level (like with Rope) and at the higher >> level (like how to organize the layout). >> > >> > I am not against to any new implementation of existing stuff. It is >> always interesting how things could be done different and especially if it >> provides better solution. >> > But I really fear that new text experiments will dramatically delay >> releaze of Bloc and Sparta and following migration to new UI. And this is >> real importance for Pharo future, and not possible moldable editor. >> > Text editors are very complex domain. It takes more than year to get >> working TxText and Twisty. Why not finish Bloc and Sparta with minimal >> effort on adopting TxText or Twisty to run on them? >> >> I think there is a confusion here. Sparta was just released on all three >> OSs (a major effort of Alex), Bloc is working and it even has TxText >> working there on top of Sparta (another major effort of Glenn). > > > If it is done then no complains from me. It is super cool. Unfortunately I not found TxText integration in dev Bloc. BlText uses new model.

Oct. 22, 2016

Re: [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Sparta v1.1

by Denis Kudriashov

Hi Dale 2016-10-22 1:20 GMT+02:00 Dale Henrichs <dale.henrichs(a)gemtalksystems.com>: > Denis, > > Sierra seems to have some issues. A couple weeks ago one of our users ran > into a problem with Pharo3.0 and Sierra > Pharo works fine. When I first time load Sparta everything works well. I am not saw any problem. But it crashed when MozServices are starting second time where dll call is failed (last log entry)

Oct. 22, 2016

Re: [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Sparta v1.1

by Dale Henrichs

Denis, Sierra seems to have some issues. A couple weeks ago one of our users ran into a problem with Pharo3.0 and Sierra --- Esteban jumped on that pretty quickly, but then we discovered some additional issues with GemStone and Sierra -- in our case it was a known bug in Sierra and we are waiting for a fix --- the upshot is that GemStone does not properly run on Sierra until that particular bug is fixed or we release a new version of GemStone with patches ... Upshot is that Sierra is apparently not quite ready for prime time ... Dale On 10/21/2016 03:44 PM, Denis Kudriashov wrote: > > 2016-10-19 18:06 GMT+02:00 Aliaksei Syrel <alex.syrel(a)gmail.com > <mailto:alex.syrel@gmail.com>>: > > > It can be bootstrapped with the following script: > > Metacello new > baseline: 'Sparta'; > repository: 'github://syrel/sparta:v1.1/src'; > load: #file:core > > Strange crash detected. > I just execute twice this script and pharo crashed. I use Mac sierra. > And here is top of crash.dmp: > C stack backtrace & registers: > eax 0x0f986260 ebx 0x00000000 ecx 0x00000000 edx 0x00000000 > edi 0x103bfc4e esi 0x103bfc4e ebp 0xbff58bf8 esp 0xbff58bd0 > eip 0x103bfcd4 > 0 libMoz2D.dylib 0x103bfcd4 > _ZN22nsComponentManagerImpl4InitEv + 148 > 1 Pharo 0x00067b16 reportStackState + 166 > Smalltalk stack dump: > 0xbff69b60 I MozServices class>primStartServices 0xca6c830: a(n) > MozServices class > 0xbff69b80 I MozServices class>start 0xca6c830: a(n) MozServices class

Oct. 22, 2016

Re: [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Sparta v1.1

by Denis Kudriashov

2016-10-19 18:06 GMT+02:00 Aliaksei Syrel <alex.syrel(a)gmail.com>: > > It can be bootstrapped with the following script: > > Metacello new > baseline: 'Sparta'; > repository: 'github://syrel/sparta:v1.1/src'; > load: #file:core > > Strange crash detected. I just execute twice this script and pharo crashed. I use Mac sierra. And here is top of crash.dmp: C stack backtrace & registers: eax 0x0f986260 ebx 0x00000000 ecx 0x00000000 edx 0x00000000 edi 0x103bfc4e esi 0x103bfc4e ebp 0xbff58bf8 esp 0xbff58bd0 eip 0x103bfcd4 0 libMoz2D.dylib 0x103bfcd4 _ZN22nsComponentManagerImpl4InitEv + 148 1 Pharo 0x00067b16 reportStackState + 166 Smalltalk stack dump: 0xbff69b60 I MozServices class>primStartServices 0xca6c830: a(n) MozServices class 0xbff69b80 I MozServices class>start 0xca6c830: a(n) MozServices class

Oct. 22, 2016

Re: [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Sparta v1.1

by Dale Henrichs

On 10/21/2016 07:30 AM, Norbert Hartl wrote: > Dale, > >> Am 21.10.2016 um 16:12 schrieb Dale Henrichs >> <dale.henrichs(a)gemtalksystems.com >> <mailto:dale.henrichs@gemtalksystems.com>>: >> >> Norbert, >> >> I didn't realize that you were claiming that the new text model for >> Sparta was (potentially) inferior. >> >> The other day you were expressing sadness about having to use the >> newer version of Metacello (which is *only* 3 years old), so I >> assumed that you were just being generally cranky about change:). >> > it might be true it is a current topic for me. In my struggle to > establish a solid devlopment process I have sometimes the feeling it > is impossible. Especially when the new metacello thingie improves > something I don't know but at the same time I loose Versionner and the > commandline handlers which I know :) > The current (!) complaint is rather based on the fact that everything > regarding the graphics backend, widget and tools appears sometimes as > an indefinite loop of reinventing stuff and improving and never get > the job done. Did I mention 64bit, UFFI,â¦ I'm glad all these topics > are worked one and I see a bright future if half of them are done. But > then sometimes it looks rather dark and the light at the end of the > tunnel just went off :) > > <dark mode off/> > Okay, so you _are_ being generally cranky:) FWIW, I took great pains to ensure the the old way of using Metacello continued to work the old (buggy) way while introducing the new (non-buggy) way and that you should be happy to only start feeling the pain of this new feature 3 years after it was introduced:) I should also note that I have no plans to remove the old way of doing things, even though I don't recommend that anyone use the old way anymore ... At GemStone we have users running on 20 year old versions of our product, so I have an appreciation for "legacy users." If you are using filetree based projects then the only way to access them is the new way... Regarding the "command-line", did you know that once you've loaded a project using the new way, that you can re-load a project using the following shorter smalltalk script: Metacello image baseline: 'AAA'; load I made a sweep through the docs a couple of years ago, but since no one seemed to be interested in using the new API I found other things to do ... and now that there's more interest in the "new way" I simply don't have the time (right now) to make another pass through the docs ... so you can be cranky about that too :) Dale

Oct. 21, 2016

Re: [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Sparta v1.1

by Dimitris Chloupis

Actually you are wrong, its not hard to use C libraries from Pharo. UFFI is not a restart, its a continuation of Nativeboost , they are very similar. Pharo FFI, whether its the old FFI, Alien, Nativeboost or UFFI, is more or less the same. In the end an FFI is defined by C syntax , Pharo UFFI borrows the easy of use of Nativeboost that allows you to take c functions definition and use them as they are with a simple copy paste. Pharo is also is based on very good integration with C , like Squeak can output its code as C code via the Slang interface though it comes with some limitations. The availability of C libraries to Pharo is a reflection of the community size. Comparing with Ruby is very unfair , as Ruby is vastly more popular (think in thousand times) , hence why you see so many C libraries wrapped for Ruby. Of course python kicks Ruby ass kung fu style with its vastly superior array of C wrapped libraries. The moment you decide to use an unpopular language as Pharo then if you are not prepared to get your hands dirty and you expect things on your plate like Ruby or Python , then its time to go back to Ruby or Python. Pharo is not in flux , its evolving, every new tool or library you see is an evolution of something else. We dont need Gems for Pharo, Dale has done a great job with Metacello, its easy to make a pharo project in git/github and have it install all pharo code and built C libraries wrapped for Pharo. Just because people are not in the habit of doing this does not mean its not super easy to be done. For example AFAIK my project ChronosManager was one of the first project to install from Catalog Browser not only its Pharo code but also , pngs and audio files. I made even an autoupdate feature that pings my github repo to see if there are any new commits and then if so it alerts the user and give him the ability to download the update with a single click. All that is metacello. Metacello is probably one of the best if not the best package distribution systems out there. Definetly vastly better than Python's PyPi and Node'js NPM . I cannot praise it enough and I have no problem criticising Pharo when I must. Dale has done an amazing job, period. On the GUI front on the other hand, its messy, no doubt about it. Morphic is huge, ugly and almost not maintained. Bloc is probably going to be the next step. I think the issue here is that we dont have Arduino or Raspberry Pi guys. Same story for my field, 3d graphics. There is a OpenGL wrapper and the Wodden graphics engine and nothing else. I and the author of Woden are the only people here interested into 3d graphics, he makes Woden, I have made a bridge with Blender Python , for using Pharo to make Blender addons and I am now in the process of making a bridge with Unreal Engine. I dont see why you would have an issue using Pharo from Raspberry Pi, we already support SDL and you can even run Pharo with no GUI from the terminal and export any Pharo method as a command line argument. My Python socket bridge also showed me that is dead easy to connect Pharo with other programming languages, in my case python , with just a few hundred lines of code. Typical IPC. So there are no excuses for not using Pharo, from there on, it depends on your specific needs and wants and taste. On Fri, Oct 21, 2016 at 7:05 PM Todd Blanchard <tblanchard(a)mac.com> wrote: > > On Oct 21, 2016, at 07:30, Norbert Hartl <norbert(a)hartl.name> wrote: > > The current (!) complaint is rather based on the fact that everything > regarding the graphics backend, widget and tools appears sometimes as an > indefinite loop of reinventing stuff and improving and never get the job > done. Did I mention 64bit, UFFI,â¦ I'm glad all these topics are worked one > and I see a bright future if half of them are done. But then sometimes it > looks rather dark and the light at the end of the tunnel just went off :) > > > I feel you. > > I very much want to use Pharo to build devices from things like Raspberry > Pi's, iPhones, and Androids. I need access to native libraries. You can't > rewrite everything ever in Smalltalk and I don't really see a good reason > to. > > I've taken about ten years off from doing Smalltalk and I'm trying to get > back into it. My interest is piqued because I want to build nice custom > systems using the nifty new cheap goodies like Arduinos and RPis and it > seems tossing together a full screen Pharo image would be a great way to > build these appliances. In that time the story for how to call out to > native code has changed...twice. Everything is broken or in flux again. > > To me, it doesn't feel like there's any more platform to build apps on > than there was ten years ago and everything is still "just around the > corner". Pharo seem to be an experiment in building next generation > programming tools using deprecated last generation programming tools. I > don't see a lot of useful programs being built atop it - largely because > the base is constantly shifting about. > > It is disheartening that the Ruby guys can crank out gems with native > libraries that compile and work on every platform and pharo is still > constantly half broken with loadable native code "doable" but only with > great effort. > > I looked and Moz2D doesn't seem to have a light weight build for Raspberry > Pi. Is hitching Pharo to a heavy weight graphics library as a core > requirement a good idea? > > I'm starting to think maybe we need something like Gems for Pharo - > dynamically loadable libraries and resources - compiled at install if > necessary. >

Oct. 21, 2016