- Pharo-dev - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-dev] developing games in Pharo

by stepharo

On 11/5/14 09:39, kilon alios wrote: > "What does "not support" mean? People have successfully deployed apps > on both iPhone and Android. Pharo can not (easily) be developed on > iPhone but can be deployed there-on. One can't develop iPhone apps on > iPhone. you need a Mac for that. Does that mean Apple don't support > iPhone?? > " > > I think you replied what support means. Support means that there is > group of people out there to support you with your problems on that > platform. Pharo does not officially release for those platforms and > there are only a couple of applications that I know that run on iOS > both from the same developer. So pretty much you are on your own. Well this is not true because Esteban helped a lot hilaire and there is also Jeff > "I disagree with 4. If graphics are done by external libraries (and > note that even BitBlt in Pharo/Squeak is not implemented in Squeak, > but in C) graphics can be as fast in Pharo as in anything else." > > It should not be a problem for an educational game anyway , I was > talking about games that are very demanding graphics wise. In those > games most of the code is most demanding anyway and so they use > dynamic languages only for scripting game logic . how can you discuss when the requirements are so under specified. > "IMO this is a /really bad/ answer. There are Pharo and Squeak apps > deployed on Android and iPhone. The answer shouldn't be "this is a > bad idea", it should be "you can deploy natively like this..., or you > can deploy with a native UI and Smalltalk logic like this...". But > the answer should never be "this is a bad idea". Alas I don't spend > my time deploying apps so I don't know how to do it, only that people > have (I have DrGeo on my iPhone). So can those that know please write > an FAQ that answers ralph's question? I wish I could :-/" > > Well let me put it this way. Its been 12 hours since the OP has asked > the question and the only two people who answered the question are > clueless about these platforms. I think the situation verifies exactly > the situation I was describing in my reply. Come on. When you do not have experience just think twice about what you think you know and the advice you want to give. > > "Kilon, please don't take this personally but someone could easily > interpret your answer as "you're better off programming in JavaScript. > Pharo can't do deployment. " That's both a terrible and an incorrect > answer. I hope we can do much better." > > I don't take it personally when people disagree with me, I find it > refreshing because I may learn something new. > > No he cant interpet it like "Pharo can't do deployment" because I > already mentioned in my first reply that there are pharo apps > distributed on iOS and especially DrGeo is a really nice app that I > have used. if he interprets my post "you're better off programming in > JavaScript" then yes he would be exactly right. Because that was my > intention. I also mentioned Amber that is Smalltalk that compiles to > Javascript so I think I did not force him to consider only JS as an > option. > > By the way I would love to be proven wrong because I also would love > to develop for those platforms with Pharo but right now I dont feel > confident about it. As you said it there is not even documentation > about the process. I remember someone once posted instructions on how > to compile Pharo on iOS but people did not show much interest and it > just disappeared. > > Please prove me wrong !!! But this is not by saying that people should not do it then. Stef > > > On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 12:23 AM, Eliot Miranda > <eliot.miranda(a)gmail.com <mailto:eliot.miranda@gmail.com>> wrote: > > Hi Kilon, Hi Ralph, > > I wish I could answer with concrete information. But that's not > what I spend my time doing. However, I need to correct the > impression the following answers give. I think they're > discouraging to say the least. > > On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 2:03 PM, kilon alios > <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com <mailto:kilon.alios@gmail.com>> wrote: > > I am no Pharo expert but will try to answer with what I know > > 1) Pharo download is 16 mb compressed and 58 mb uncompressed. > > > and can be stripped. It is easy to get a development environment > into 16Mb (e.g. Newspeak). Applications can easily fit in 16Mb. > Applications don't need to be deployed with sources or changes files. > > 2) Pharo is a standalone and as such it does not need > installation. Everything you need is in a single folder > contained in a single zip with a single download. I dont think > you can get any easier than that. So its a single task. > > > But there are scripts to create platform-compatible installers on > Mac OS and Win32 if that's what you want. > > 3) There are people who run Pharo on iOS like DrGeo. But Pharo > does not support those platforms and most likely you will > experience few problems with it. So its some extra work but > its doable. They do represent a larger market and a very > important one I agree. > > > What does "not support" mean? People have successfully deployed > apps on both iPhone and Android. Pharo can not (easily) be > developed on iPhone but can be deployed there-on. One can't > develop iPhone apps on iPhone. you need a Mac for that. Does > that mean Apple don't support iPhone?? > > 4) Again I dont know the issues on those platforms but bare in > mid, Pharo is a dynamic language and dynamic language are > definetly not a first choice for those platforms for game > because they are slower than official supported languages. > Those are in iOS ObjectiveC and on Android Java. All that > assuming your game has some demanding graphics. For simple > graphics with not much animation and such you should be ok. > > > I disagree with 4. If graphics are done by external libraries > (and note that even BitBlt in Pharo/Squeak is not implemented in > Squeak, but in C) graphics can be as fast in Pharo as in anything > else. > > > Personally I think its not a good idea, because Pharo does not > support those platforms well. I think that in that scenario > there is a better alternative , that of Javascript + Pharo. > Its possible to use JS as front end and Pharo as backend. If > you dont want to code in Js there is Amber. Web apps are quite > performant so you will be able to do some really impressive > graphics with this recipe. You will be using also technologies > that are well documented and well tested. > > > IMO this is a /really bad/ answer. There are Pharo and Squeak > apps deployed on Android and iPhone. The answer shouldn't be > "this is a bad idea", it should be "you can deploy natively like > this..., or you can deploy with a native UI and Smalltalk logic > like this...". But the answer should never be "this is a bad > idea". Alas I don't spend my time deploying apps so I don't know > how to do it, only that people have (I have DrGeo on my iPhone). > So can those that know please write an FAQ that answers ralph's > question? I wish I could :-/ > > > Also there are like a ton of game libraries for JS out there. > Which will lift the amount of work you will need to do for > your game. > > > Kilon, please don't take this personally but someone could easily > interpret your answer as "you're better off programming in > JavaScript. Pharo can't do deployment. " That's both a terrible > and an incorrect answer. I hope we can do much better. > > -- > best, > Eliot > >

May 11, 2014

I made a pass on the new website

by Esteban Lorenzano

Hi, I made a pass on the new website. I improved a bit documentation: - added âimmediate linksâ :P - added pharodocs reference link We still need to do a lot of work, but we are making improvements. Ah, I also promoted Laurentâs video to first page :) Esteban

May 11, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] developing games in Pharo

by stepharo

Clement hilaire told me that he has friends developing in C++ simple educational game and this is a hell to deploy on differetn platforms While with Pharo this IS simple. Stef On 11/5/14 09:51, ClÃ©ment Bera wrote: > Else, as you can see for DrGeo, propose the application as an Android > app / iPhone app on Google play / the Apple store. > > Note that you may prefer to deploy on the web to avoid needing to port > the application to all platforms.

May 11, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] developing games in Pharo

by stepharo

On 10/5/14 23:03, kilon alios wrote: > I am no Pharo expert but will try to answer with what I know > > 1) Pharo download is 16 mb compressed and 58 mb uncompressed. > > 2) Pharo is a standalone and as such it does not need installation. > Everything you need is in a single folder contained in a single zip > with a single download. I dont think you can get any easier than that. > So its a single task. > > 3) There are people who run Pharo on iOS like DrGeo. But Pharo does > not support those platforms and most likely you will experience few > problems with it. So its some extra work but its doable. They do > represent a larger market and a very important one I agree. ??? Esteban is maintained the iOS VM since years!!! > > 4) Again I dont know the issues on those platforms but bare in mid, > Pharo is a dynamic language and dynamic language are definetly not a > first choice for those platforms for game because they are slower than > official supported languages. Those are in iOS ObjectiveC and on > Android Java. All that assuming your game has some demanding graphics. > For simple graphics with not much animation and such you should be ok. I know people that developed games with squeak 8 years ago using OpenGL for digital TV with animations so ... > > Personally I think its not a good idea, because Pharo does not support > those platforms well. I think that in that scenario there is a better > alternative , that of Javascript + Pharo. Jeff Rick is doing iPad Application. So it really depends which kind of games (if this is God of War 3 forget Pharo) but if this is a traditional game like angry birds or so I do not see why this would be a problem. > Its possible to use JS as front end and Pharo as backend. If you dont > want to code in Js there is Amber. Web apps are quite performant so > you will be able to do some really impressive graphics with this > recipe. You will be using also technologies that are well documented > and well tested. > > Also there are like a ton of game libraries for JS out there. Which > will lift the amount of work you will need to do for your game.

May 11, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] developing games in Pharo

by stepharo

On 10/5/14 22:42, Ralph Boland wrote: > I was recently approached to develop a children's educational computer > game version of a real (wood etc.) game > (looks like a pretty good game). > I said I would only be interested if I could do the first > implementation in Smalltalk (Squeak or Pharo). > But if I develop this game in Smalltalk what am I dealing with in > terms of releasing this product > to a customer (over the Internet). Plop was a squeak game sold. My kids played with it without me doing anything. > > 1) I know I have to build a suitable executable but I have never done > this. I have only written Smalltalk code that I then > use. So how do I build such an image and how big is it (assume > code for game is small (say 3000 lines of code)). I think that you can get easily under 10 mb removing the tools. And we can help for that. > 2) How do I get the virtual image on the customer's machine. Keep in > mind the customer is someone somewhere > on the Internet who probably knows little about how to install > Smalltalk or anything else. I am assuming here that > installing the game and installing the VM are two different > tasks. Is there a way to make this a single task? You can have the one click which is doing a cross platform launcher. Plop and sophie were deployed like that. Moose and Seaside during years too. > 3) So far I am assuming the target machine is Linux/Windows/Mac on a > Desktop/Laptop. > But can Smalltalk be run on any of the IPad/Notebook/etc out there? > These machines represent a larger game market I believe. Any is not a simple word. If you want to deploy on android or iOS I imagine that you know that there are different constraints. > > 4) Assuming I can arrange for my computer game (if I write it) to be > installed are there memory/cpu usage issues > that I need to worry about (the game itself will use a minimal of > memory/cpu except for graphics which also > is pretty reasonable). I am thinking here of IPads etc. for iPad JochenRick deployed squeak and Pharo solutions. Now people are working on a ARMJIT and we will have soon and ARMASM so it will go faster. > For Desktops/Laptops there should be no problem. > Download time and subsequent storage space is also a concern; > remember the device is probably used for > lots of other things so the amount of space allocated for games > may be small compared to the space on the > machine? Do you know the average size of an application one the different devices? Because any goodies on Mac is much much more than the complete Pharo release with full sources (which can be removed) 5) Sorry for the redundancy if these questions have been asked before (which I am sure they have). > > Thanks for any feedback; I am sure others are interested in this > question too. What you should consider is that as a community we are interested in making you succeed now it also depends on you :) > > Ralph Boland

May 11, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] developing games in Pharo

by Esteban Lorenzano

in my discharge, I have to say that the only reason why the pharovm is not released for iOS is because Iâve been really busy to properly configure the jenkins slave. But you should be able to produce an iPharo vm (is stack, no support for JIT yet) as easy as compiling any other vm. And I know Jean-Baptiste is in his way to revive the Android platform. In general about gaming, I think nothing prevent us to have something like pygame working right now (technically we have all the elements), just that as a community, we usually are more focused in other directions. But Ronnie is finishing his SDL2 work and soon we will have a version of OSWindow that we can actually use (that will lead to another vm-plugin cleanup. but thatâs another story). SDL2 even has bindings for audio, so we could have audio access without the ALSA/Pulse pain we are having this days. With OpenGL/OpenCL support (which is also being made by Ronnie, he) we could even have very fast graphics support without going out the image (well, just to call those libraries). In other order of things (some-kind related) a couple of months ago Eliot told me that he can be in his way to give us an âexecuteOnProcessâ primitive, that would solve most of our parallelisation problems (and Eliot will be probably hating me at this moment, I know he dislike announcements before they are at least startedâ¦ Iâm sorry). So wellâ¦ I think the answer should be: 1) it is possible, 2) but things are poor documented and we need to improve there 3) as being a pioneer in the gaming for mobile area (with pharo), you will need some work. And of course community (and me in particular) is willing to help as much as we can. 4) â¦ and of course since thatâs a non frequent area for us as a community, they will be probably things to overcomeâ¦ but again, they will all be solvable and we are willing to help. cheers, Esteban On 11 May 2014, at 09:39, kilon alios <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com> wrote: > "What does "not support" mean? People have successfully deployed apps on both iPhone and Android. Pharo can not (easily) be developed on iPhone but can be deployed there-on. One can't develop iPhone apps on iPhone. you need a Mac for that. Does that mean Apple don't support iPhone?? > " > > I think you replied what support means. Support means that there is group of people out there to support you with your problems on that platform. Pharo does not officially release for those platforms and there are only a couple of applications that I know that run on iOS both from the same developer. So pretty much you are on your own. > > "I disagree with 4. If graphics are done by external libraries (and note that even BitBlt in Pharo/Squeak is not implemented in Squeak, but in C) graphics can be as fast in Pharo as in anything else." > > It should not be a problem for an educational game anyway , I was talking about games that are very demanding graphics wise. In those games most of the code is most demanding anyway and so they use dynamic languages only for scripting game logic . > > "IMO this is a /really bad/ answer. There are Pharo and Squeak apps deployed on Android and iPhone. The answer shouldn't be "this is a bad idea", it should be "you can deploy natively like this..., or you can deploy with a native UI and Smalltalk logic like this...". But the answer should never be "this is a bad idea". Alas I don't spend my time deploying apps so I don't know how to do it, only that people have (I have DrGeo on my iPhone). So can those that know please write an FAQ that answers ralph's question? I wish I could :-/" > > Well let me put it this way. Its been 12 hours since the OP has asked the question and the only two people who answered the question are clueless about these platforms. I think the situation verifies exactly the situation I was describing in my reply. > > "Kilon, please don't take this personally but someone could easily interpret your answer as "you're better off programming in JavaScript. Pharo can't do deployment. " That's both a terrible and an incorrect answer. I hope we can do much better." > > I don't take it personally when people disagree with me, I find it refreshing because I may learn something new. > > No he cant interpet it like "Pharo can't do deployment" because I already mentioned in my first reply that there are pharo apps distributed on iOS and especially DrGeo is a really nice app that I have used. if he interprets my post "you're better off programming in JavaScript" then yes he would be exactly right. Because that was my intention. I also mentioned Amber that is Smalltalk that compiles to Javascript so I think I did not force him to consider only JS as an option. > > By the way I would love to be proven wrong because I also would love to develop for those platforms with Pharo but right now I dont feel confident about it. As you said it there is not even documentation about the process. I remember someone once posted instructions on how to compile Pharo on iOS but people did not show much interest and it just disappeared. > > Please prove me wrong !!! > > > On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 12:23 AM, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Kilon, Hi Ralph, > > I wish I could answer with concrete information. But that's not what I spend my time doing. However, I need to correct the impression the following answers give. I think they're discouraging to say the least. > > On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 2:03 PM, kilon alios <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I am no Pharo expert but will try to answer with what I know > > 1) Pharo download is 16 mb compressed and 58 mb uncompressed. > > and can be stripped. It is easy to get a development environment into 16Mb (e.g. Newspeak). Applications can easily fit in 16Mb. Applications don't need to be deployed with sources or changes files. > > 2) Pharo is a standalone and as such it does not need installation. Everything you need is in a single folder contained in a single zip with a single download. I dont think you can get any easier than that. So its a single task. > > But there are scripts to create platform-compatible installers on Mac OS and Win32 if that's what you want. > > 3) There are people who run Pharo on iOS like DrGeo. But Pharo does not support those platforms and most likely you will experience few problems with it. So its some extra work but its doable. They do represent a larger market and a very important one I agree. > > What does "not support" mean? People have successfully deployed apps on both iPhone and Android. Pharo can not (easily) be developed on iPhone but can be deployed there-on. One can't develop iPhone apps on iPhone. you need a Mac for that. Does that mean Apple don't support iPhone?? > > 4) Again I dont know the issues on those platforms but bare in mid, Pharo is a dynamic language and dynamic language are definetly not a first choice for those platforms for game because they are slower than official supported languages. Those are in iOS ObjectiveC and on Android Java. All that assuming your game has some demanding graphics. For simple graphics with not much animation and such you should be ok. > > I disagree with 4. If graphics are done by external libraries (and note that even BitBlt in Pharo/Squeak is not implemented in Squeak, but in C) graphics can be as fast in Pharo as in anything else. > > > Personally I think its not a good idea, because Pharo does not support those platforms well. I think that in that scenario there is a better alternative , that of Javascript + Pharo. Its possible to use JS as front end and Pharo as backend. If you dont want to code in Js there is Amber. Web apps are quite performant so you will be able to do some really impressive graphics with this recipe. You will be using also technologies that are well documented and well tested. > > IMO this is a /really bad/ answer. There are Pharo and Squeak apps deployed on Android and iPhone. The answer shouldn't be "this is a bad idea", it should be "you can deploy natively like this..., or you can deploy with a native UI and Smalltalk logic like this...". But the answer should never be "this is a bad idea". Alas I don't spend my time deploying apps so I don't know how to do it, only that people have (I have DrGeo on my iPhone). So can those that know please write an FAQ that answers ralph's question? I wish I could :-/ > > > > Also there are like a ton of game libraries for JS out there. Which will lift the amount of work you will need to do for your game. > > Kilon, please don't take this personally but someone could easily interpret your answer as "you're better off programming in JavaScript. Pharo can't do deployment. " That's both a terrible and an incorrect answer. I hope we can do much better. > > -- > best, > Eliot >

May 11, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] developing games in Pharo

by ClÃ©ment Bera

Hello, 2014-05-10 22:42 GMT+02:00 Ralph Boland <rpboland(a)gmail.com>: > I was recently approached to develop a children's educational computer > game version of a real (wood etc.) game > (looks like a pretty good game). > I said I would only be interested if I could do the first implementation > in Smalltalk (Squeak or Pharo). > But if I develop this game in Smalltalk what am I dealing with in terms of > releasing this product > to a customer (over the Internet). > > 1) I know I have to build a suitable executable but I have never done > this. I have only written Smalltalk code that I then > use. So how do I build such an image and how big is it (assume code > for game is small (say 3000 lines of code)). > Here's a doc that explains how to build a suitable deployment image and executable for windows and Mac: https://ci.inria.fr/pharo-contribution/job/PharoForTheEnterprise/lastSucces… You can also build a Linux executable but there are no documentation about it. If you want documentation about it complain everyday on this mailing list for missing documentation, by the end of the month people will have written it to have you stop complaining :-). The image should be around 15Mb. > 2) How do I get the virtual image on the customer's machine. Keep in > mind the customer is someone somewhere > on the Internet who probably knows little about how to install > Smalltalk or anything else. I am assuming here that > installing the game and installing the VM are two different tasks. > Is there a way to make this a single task? > The executable you can generate from the doc I pointed to you on question 1 makes installing the VM and the image a single task. Ask the users to download the windows, Mac or Linux executable. Else, as you can see for DrGeo, propose the application as an Android app / iPhone app on Google play / the Apple store. Note that you may prefer to deploy on the web to avoid needing to port the application to all platforms. > > 3) So far I am assuming the target machine is Linux/Windows/Mac on a > Desktop/Laptop. > But can Smalltalk be run on any of the IPad/Notebook/etc out there? > These machines represent a larger game market I believe. > As far as I know, There are deployed Pharo applications on Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, iOS, Android, RISC OS. In theory, if you need an additional specific platform, the guys on the vm-dev mailing list could help you compiling the VM for your additional platform. However this may take a few weeks of work depending on the target platform and your skills. > > 4) Assuming I can arrange for my computer game (if I write it) to be > installed are there memory/cpu usage issues > that I need to worry about (the game itself will use a minimal of > memory/cpu except for graphics which also > is pretty reasonable). I am thinking here of IPads etc. For > Desktops/Laptops there should be no problem. > Download time and subsequent storage space is also a concern; > remember the device is probably used for > lots of other things so the amount of space allocated for games may > be small compared to the space on the > machine? > Nothing to worry about. Usually a Pharo application have at runtime a memory footprint of less than 30Mb. And now even small embedded devices have at least 256Mb of RAM. Cpu usage is also OK. Now note that on ARM devices (typically, Android, iOS and RISC OS), the VM is 2-10x slower. Therefore you may need to profile and optimize a bit your application before deploying on ARM devices. We have a profiler in Pharo that you can easily use to do that. For the download part, you can shrink your Pharo executable by removing unused important packages in the image and the source file. > > 5) Sorry for the redundancy if these questions have been asked before > (which I am sure they have). > Yeah well this mailing list is Pharo-dev it is usually a bit more oriented towards the development of Pharo itself. If you want to make professional application you may (or may not) want to discuss it on Pharo-business mailing list. > > Thanks for any feedback; I am sure others are interested in this question > too. > Definitely. What framework are you using for your graphics ? Because if plan to use Athens (our vector graphics framework), graphics will for sure go faster, but you should know that it relies on Cairo, and Cairo is not stable on every OS (for example it is not stable at all on iOS, so no iPad/iPhone and bye bye cross platform application). Else the graphics are bit based and these may be a bit slow if you're doing heavy graphics computation. Btw, you may want to discuss with J.F. Rick, he has already implemented and deployed educational computer game (desktop app) with Pharo and touch screens. You may also want to try to ask question to the guy that deployed DrGeo (I think he's named Hilaire Fernandez), it's an app to teach geometry to kids AFAIK, it has quite some graphics, and it's deployed on Apple store/Google play. I guess he's the guy to ask on how to deploy on iPhone/Android. > > > Ralph Boland >

May 11, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] developing games in Pharo

by kilon alios

"What does "not support" mean? People have successfully deployed apps on both iPhone and Android. Pharo can not (easily) be developed on iPhone but can be deployed there-on. One can't develop iPhone apps on iPhone. you need a Mac for that. Does that mean Apple don't support iPhone?? " I think you replied what support means. Support means that there is group of people out there to support you with your problems on that platform. Pharo does not officially release for those platforms and there are only a couple of applications that I know that run on iOS both from the same developer. So pretty much you are on your own. "I disagree with 4. If graphics are done by external libraries (and note that even BitBlt in Pharo/Squeak is not implemented in Squeak, but in C) graphics can be as fast in Pharo as in anything else." It should not be a problem for an educational game anyway , I was talking about games that are very demanding graphics wise. In those games most of the code is most demanding anyway and so they use dynamic languages only for scripting game logic . "IMO this is a /really bad/ answer. There are Pharo and Squeak apps deployed on Android and iPhone. The answer shouldn't be "this is a bad idea", it should be "you can deploy natively like this..., or you can deploy with a native UI and Smalltalk logic like this...". But the answer should never be "this is a bad idea". Alas I don't spend my time deploying apps so I don't know how to do it, only that people have (I have DrGeo on my iPhone). So can those that know please write an FAQ that answers ralph's question? I wish I could :-/" Well let me put it this way. Its been 12 hours since the OP has asked the question and the only two people who answered the question are clueless about these platforms. I think the situation verifies exactly the situation I was describing in my reply. "Kilon, please don't take this personally but someone could easily interpret your answer as "you're better off programming in JavaScript. Pharo can't do deployment. " That's both a terrible and an incorrect answer. I hope we can do much better." I don't take it personally when people disagree with me, I find it refreshing because I may learn something new. No he cant interpet it like "Pharo can't do deployment" because I already mentioned in my first reply that there are pharo apps distributed on iOS and especially DrGeo is a really nice app that I have used. if he interprets my post "you're better off programming in JavaScript" then yes he would be exactly right. Because that was my intention. I also mentioned Amber that is Smalltalk that compiles to Javascript so I think I did not force him to consider only JS as an option. By the way I would love to be proven wrong because I also would love to develop for those platforms with Pharo but right now I dont feel confident about it. As you said it there is not even documentation about the process. I remember someone once posted instructions on how to compile Pharo on iOS but people did not show much interest and it just disappeared. Please prove me wrong !!! On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 12:23 AM, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda(a)gmail.com>wrote: > Hi Kilon, Hi Ralph, > > I wish I could answer with concrete information. But that's not what I > spend my time doing. However, I need to correct the impression the > following answers give. I think they're discouraging to say the least. > > On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 2:03 PM, kilon alios <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com>wrote: > >> I am no Pharo expert but will try to answer with what I know >> >> 1) Pharo download is 16 mb compressed and 58 mb uncompressed. >> > > and can be stripped. It is easy to get a development environment into > 16Mb (e.g. Newspeak). Applications can easily fit in 16Mb. Applications > don't need to be deployed with sources or changes files. > > >> 2) Pharo is a standalone and as such it does not need installation. >> Everything you need is in a single folder contained in a single zip with a >> single download. I dont think you can get any easier than that. So its a >> single task. >> > > But there are scripts to create platform-compatible installers on Mac OS > and Win32 if that's what you want. > > >> 3) There are people who run Pharo on iOS like DrGeo. But Pharo does not >> support those platforms and most likely you will experience few problems >> with it. So its some extra work but its doable. They do represent a larger >> market and a very important one I agree. >> > > What does "not support" mean? People have successfully deployed apps on > both iPhone and Android. Pharo can not (easily) be developed on iPhone but > can be deployed there-on. One can't develop iPhone apps on iPhone. you > need a Mac for that. Does that mean Apple don't support iPhone?? > > >> 4) Again I dont know the issues on those platforms but bare in mid, Pharo >> is a dynamic language and dynamic language are definetly not a first choice >> for those platforms for game because they are slower than official >> supported languages. Those are in iOS ObjectiveC and on Android Java. All >> that assuming your game has some demanding graphics. For simple graphics >> with not much animation and such you should be ok. >> > > I disagree with 4. If graphics are done by external libraries (and note > that even BitBlt in Pharo/Squeak is not implemented in Squeak, but in C) > graphics can be as fast in Pharo as in anything else. > > >> >> Personally I think its not a good idea, because Pharo does not support >> those platforms well. I think that in that scenario there is a better >> alternative , that of Javascript + Pharo. Its possible to use JS as front >> end and Pharo as backend. If you dont want to code in Js there is Amber. >> Web apps are quite performant so you will be able to do some really >> impressive graphics with this recipe. You will be using also technologies >> that are well documented and well tested. >> > > IMO this is a /really bad/ answer. There are Pharo and Squeak apps > deployed on Android and iPhone. The answer shouldn't be "this is a bad > idea", it should be "you can deploy natively like this..., or you can > deploy with a native UI and Smalltalk logic like this...". But the answer > should never be "this is a bad idea". Alas I don't spend my time deploying > apps so I don't know how to do it, only that people have (I have DrGeo on > my iPhone). So can those that know please write an FAQ that answers > ralph's question? I wish I could :-/ > > > >> >> Also there are like a ton of game libraries for JS out there. Which will >> lift the amount of work you will need to do for your game. >> > > Kilon, please don't take this personally but someone could easily > interpret your answer as "you're better off programming in JavaScript. > Pharo can't do deployment. " That's both a terrible and an incorrect > answer. I hope we can do much better. > > -- > best, > Eliot >

May 11, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] developing games in Pharo

by Eliot Miranda

Hi Kilon, Hi Ralph, I wish I could answer with concrete information. But that's not what I spend my time doing. However, I need to correct the impression the following answers give. I think they're discouraging to say the least. On Sat, May 10, 2014 at 2:03 PM, kilon alios <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I am no Pharo expert but will try to answer with what I know > > 1) Pharo download is 16 mb compressed and 58 mb uncompressed. > and can be stripped. It is easy to get a development environment into 16Mb (e.g. Newspeak). Applications can easily fit in 16Mb. Applications don't need to be deployed with sources or changes files. > 2) Pharo is a standalone and as such it does not need installation. > Everything you need is in a single folder contained in a single zip with a > single download. I dont think you can get any easier than that. So its a > single task. > But there are scripts to create platform-compatible installers on Mac OS and Win32 if that's what you want. > 3) There are people who run Pharo on iOS like DrGeo. But Pharo does not > support those platforms and most likely you will experience few problems > with it. So its some extra work but its doable. They do represent a larger > market and a very important one I agree. > What does "not support" mean? People have successfully deployed apps on both iPhone and Android. Pharo can not (easily) be developed on iPhone but can be deployed there-on. One can't develop iPhone apps on iPhone. you need a Mac for that. Does that mean Apple don't support iPhone?? > 4) Again I dont know the issues on those platforms but bare in mid, Pharo > is a dynamic language and dynamic language are definetly not a first choice > for those platforms for game because they are slower than official > supported languages. Those are in iOS ObjectiveC and on Android Java. All > that assuming your game has some demanding graphics. For simple graphics > with not much animation and such you should be ok. > I disagree with 4. If graphics are done by external libraries (and note that even BitBlt in Pharo/Squeak is not implemented in Squeak, but in C) graphics can be as fast in Pharo as in anything else. > > Personally I think its not a good idea, because Pharo does not support > those platforms well. I think that in that scenario there is a better > alternative , that of Javascript + Pharo. Its possible to use JS as front > end and Pharo as backend. If you dont want to code in Js there is Amber. > Web apps are quite performant so you will be able to do some really > impressive graphics with this recipe. You will be using also technologies > that are well documented and well tested. > IMO this is a /really bad/ answer. There are Pharo and Squeak apps deployed on Android and iPhone. The answer shouldn't be "this is a bad idea", it should be "you can deploy natively like this..., or you can deploy with a native UI and Smalltalk logic like this...". But the answer should never be "this is a bad idea". Alas I don't spend my time deploying apps so I don't know how to do it, only that people have (I have DrGeo on my iPhone). So can those that know please write an FAQ that answers ralph's question? I wish I could :-/ > > Also there are like a ton of game libraries for JS out there. Which will > lift the amount of work you will need to do for your game. > Kilon, please don't take this personally but someone could easily interpret your answer as "you're better off programming in JavaScript. Pharo can't do deployment. " That's both a terrible and an incorrect answer. I hope we can do much better. -- best, Eliot

May 10, 2014

Re: [Pharo-dev] developing games in Pharo

by kilon alios

I am no Pharo expert but will try to answer with what I know 1) Pharo download is 16 mb compressed and 58 mb uncompressed. 2) Pharo is a standalone and as such it does not need installation. Everything you need is in a single folder contained in a single zip with a single download. I dont think you can get any easier than that. So its a single task. 3) There are people who run Pharo on iOS like DrGeo. But Pharo does not support those platforms and most likely you will experience few problems with it. So its some extra work but its doable. They do represent a larger market and a very important one I agree. 4) Again I dont know the issues on those platforms but bare in mid, Pharo is a dynamic language and dynamic language are definetly not a first choice for those platforms for game because they are slower than official supported languages. Those are in iOS ObjectiveC and on Android Java. All that assuming your game has some demanding graphics. For simple graphics with not much animation and such you should be ok. Personally I think its not a good idea, because Pharo does not support those platforms well. I think that in that scenario there is a better alternative , that of Javascript + Pharo. Its possible to use JS as front end and Pharo as backend. If you dont want to code in Js there is Amber. Web apps are quite performant so you will be able to do some really impressive graphics with this recipe. You will be using also technologies that are well documented and well tested. Also there are like a ton of game libraries for JS out there. Which will lift the amount of work you will need to do for your game.

May 10, 2014