March 2013 - Pharo-users - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-users] Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?

by Sean P. DeNigris

Victor wrote > Traditionally and culturally, at first glance, forgive me if I'm > stereotyping, but the smalltalk world seems to be heavily biased towards > academic and large proprietary enterprise tooling and development > environments I have also heard this (from non-Smalltalkers). My experience in the community (just 3 years) is markedly different. Although there is definitely strength in academic (e.g. Noury's great robotics stuff [2]) and enterprise settings, if I had to pick the most common scenario, I see many vibrant small businesses (e.g. Inceptive [1]) doing web and desktop apps. For myself, I use Smalltalk as it was intended... as prototype Dynabook software ;) I am slowly wrapping my world (calendar, todos, notetaking, journal) in Smalltalk because I will not accept anything less from my computer than live turtles all the way down. I also use it to replace shell scripts, to run Jenkins jobs, and to write web and desktop apps for small businesses - you would never run out of work if you went around to people using Excel spreadsheets and built Smalltalk apps that express their intentions on their own terms, instead of Excel's (or whatever other off the shelf garbage they're using). [1] http://inceptive.be/ [2] https://www.google.com/search?q=noury+robotics p.s. Pharo has laid a lot of groundwork in the last few years to magnify all this. When I first discovered Smalltalk, I was excited by the power, but frustrated by the mess under the covers of Squeak (FileDirectory was particularly agonizing). Whenever I started to develop a revolutionary-next-cool tool, I ran into a mess like the text model. Since then, Pharo has been steadily evolving many foundational pieces. There has been an upfront cost of backward-compatibility, as some great projects have not kept pace. But it seems all worth it, as I feel us approaching a critical point where the clean, beautiful system will inspire and support the next generation of amazing ideas on top of Pharo. p.p.s. Squeak has also made a lot of progess and I value it highly :) I'm particularly excited about the cooperation and cross-pollination that I've seen recently... ----- Cheers, Sean -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Why-are-SmallTalk-projects-source-code-hosted-on-SS3-… Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

March 29, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?

by phil＠highoctane.be

Depends on how many words there are... 2013/3/29 Sean P. DeNigris <sean(a)clipperadams.com> > philippeback wrote > > Syntax is > > easy, OO with messages is harder. > > It seems to me that OO only appears as hard as it does after years of being > brainwashed by a clueless academic system that pushes C, C++, and Java. The > small children at PARC didn't seem to have a problem with OO ;) > > > > ----- > Cheers, > Sean > -- > View this message in context: > http://forum.world.st/Why-are-SmallTalk-projects-source-code-hosted-on-SS3-… > Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > >

March 29, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] More GSoC ideas wanted, 3 days left ....

by Hilaire Fernandes

Hi, Bellow a proposal Thanks Hilaire =Title= Framework to render and to edit LaTeX formula =Level (beginner, intermediate, advanced)= Advanced =Mentor= Hilaire Fernandes =Second mentor= =Description= The framework should come in two parts: rendering of LaTeX math formula. LaTeX equation editor =Technical Details= The tools should depend on: Pharo freetype interface to render font. the Morph user interface tool kit. No external libraries or on-line services should be used. Why LaTeX and not MathML: LaTeX formula can be hand edited, MathML not really as there are not very human readable. =Benefits to the Student= Learn how to represent, to render and to edit mathematic expressions. Learn how to design an editor tool: model, view and controller. =Benefits to the Community A library to render and to edit mathematic formula. Le 26/03/2013 12:36, Janko MivÅ¡ek a Ã©crit :> Dear Pharoers, > > Ideas are slowly coming, 14 so far, but this is way below the 30+ in > previous years. So, stretch your brain, come with some more ideas, which > will be interesting for potential students and of course useful for our > community. Students you are again welcome to propose such idea by your > own. One student idea for now! -- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu

March 29, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?

by Sean P. DeNigris

philippeback wrote > Syntax is > easy, OO with messages is harder. It seems to me that OO only appears as hard as it does after years of being brainwashed by a clueless academic system that pushes C, C++, and Java. The small children at PARC didn't seem to have a problem with OO ;) ----- Cheers, Sean -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Why-are-SmallTalk-projects-source-code-hosted-on-SS3-… Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

March 29, 2013

Thanks Sensus!! New member of the consortium

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

Hi guys we want to thank Sensus to be a new member of the consortium. Thanks for your trust. Stef

March 29, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] More GSoC ideas wanted, 3 days left ....

by Camillo Bruni

thanks guys for writing this down! I didn't have the power anymore :( On 2013-03-29, at 02:34, Javier PimÃ¡s <elpochodelagente(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Are we still on time for the party? > > *Title:* Smalltalk Native-Code Debugger. > *Level*: Intermediate. > *Possible mentor:* Guido Chari. > *Possible second mentor:* Javier PimÃ¡s. > > *Description:* > > Smalltalk is a powerful environment for software developing. It allows the > development of high-level abstractions, and it is highly dynamic and > reflective, which promotes analyzing and changing objects at run-time. > Debuggers are essential tools, particularly in Smalltalk because they allow > developers to understand a program as well as to find and fix defects as > they are running. > > Debugging native applications, on the other hand, is very hard. Many native > applications can't be developed using high level abstractions. Furthermore, > as they consist of native-code, debugging them requires understanding and > modification of very low-level operations on raw memory at run-time [1], > and also a close interaction with the operating system [2][3]. > > Using Smalltalk to control and debug low-level code would be a great aid in > the native-code development process. It would allow not only to control > programs status and trace, but also to easily develop a myriad of > high-level tools that analyze and modify native-code as it runs. > > > *Technical Details:* > > There are many different kinds of debuggers, and many mechanisms are > already mature for implementing features in them[4]. Warp[5] is a recently > born project to implement on Pharo a wrapper for the PTrace system call, > the essential operating system debugging API. With the addition of already > existing powerful high-level tools for low-level programming, as > NativeBoost[6] and Waterfall[7], this project will allow to have a native > debugger interface for any process from a Smalltalk image, and create a > complete ecosystem for Native-Code developing from Smalltalk. > > The first steps will include understanding the ptrace system call, and > about x86 instructions coding and decoding. This can be done by completing > the wrapper of ptrace, which consists of only one function with many > different functionalities and improving the disassembler for x86 binary > code. After this the student will be able to develop tools for aiding in > native-code debugging, like a specialized inspectors and debuggers for > watching the value of variables, adding breakpoints, watchpoints, modifying > memory and code. > > > *Benefits to the Student:* > > * gain experience in high-level and low-level programming. > * learn about how debuggers work under the hood > * gain experience on the usage and development of a complete Smalltalk > native-code development toolchain. > * learn about native-code assembling and disassembling > > *Benefits to the Community:* > > * Lately, there has been more and more evidence that high-level written > software for low-level development is starting to succeed. Smalltalk > provides an ideal platform for exploring this domain because of its > powerful reflective capabilities. NativeBoost already promotes lot of new > possibilities for working dynamically on the Pharo environment with complex > low-level tasks. More tools for having a complete and outstanding > tool-chain are needed and the native debugging interface is one of the most > prominent and promising. > > * A native-code debugger will help Smalltalk VM and low-level programmers, > because it will leverage all their Smalltalk programming skills into > low-level programming. It could even bring closer non-VM programmers to VM > code, as it would remove a barrier of entrance to VM programming. > > * Having a fully working native-code debugger would be a killer app that > can attract lots of low-level developers to Smalltalk, specially Virtual > Machine and C/C++ programmers. > > > Cheers, > Guido and Javier. > > [1] http://mikecvet.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/ptrace-tutorial/ > [2] > http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~courses/coe518/LinuxJournal/elj2002-103-ptrace1.p… > [3] > http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~courses/coe518/LinuxJournal/elj2002-104-ptrace2.p… > > [4] How debuggers work: algorithms, data structures, and architecture, > Jonathan B. Rosenberg, ISBN: 0-471-14966-7 > [5] http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~melkyades/Warp > [6] https://code.google.com/p/nativeboost/ > [7] http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~mate/Waterfall > > > > > On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 8:36 AM, Janko MivÅ¡ek <janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si>wrote: > >> Dear Pharoers, >> >> Ideas are slowly coming, 14 so far, but this is way below the 30+ in >> previous years. So, stretch your brain, come with some more ideas, which >> will be interesting for potential students and of course useful for our >> community. Students you are again welcome to propose such idea by your >> own. One student idea for now! >> >> Ideas so far: http://gsoc2013.esug.org/ideas >> >> To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea >> template: >> >> Title: >> >> Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced) >> >> Possible mentor: (if already known) >> >> Possible second mentor: (if already known) >> >> Description >> >> Technical Details >> >> Benefits to the Student >> >> Benefits to the Community >> >> Best regards >> Serge and Janko, >> your this year GSoC admins >> >> >> -- >> Janko MivÅ¡ek >> Aida/Web >> Smalltalk Web Application Server >> http://www.aidaweb.si >> >> > > > -- > Lic. Javier PimÃ¡s > Ciudad de Buenos Aires

March 29, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?

by Victor Stan

I have not had the chance to check out the local ST community, but I think I might soon :) Victor Stan Schedule me: http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor Add me to your address book - it's easy! http://contactmonkey.com/victor On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:34 PM, Yanni Chiu <yanni(a)rogers.com> wrote: > On 21/03/13 10:09 PM, Victor Stan wrote: > >> >> Traditionally and culturally, at first glance, forgive me if I'm >> stereotyping, but the smalltalk world seems to be heavily biased towards >> academic and large proprietary enterprise tooling and development >> environments. I think this is a reason (among others, from what I've >> read around) why ST hasn't picked up steam as the WWW grew up, the >> developers and tools were simply not geared toward such an environment. >> > > The "why did Smalltalk not take off" debate is a regular occurrence on > Smalltalk discussion forums. > > There used to be Smalltalk implementations that targeted smaller > companies. Digitalk Smalltalk was one of these. Unfortunately, at the > critical WWW breakout moment, Digitalk was bought by ParcPlace, and > eventually killed. Perhaps an independent Digitalk could have adapted as > you would have expected. > > > However, while I'm guessing that most developers in ST are still heavily >> oriented toward enterprise platforms, we can all benefit by bringing >> aboard more developers and creating a large market and demand for ST >> developers, and I'm going to go on a limb here and say that that's not >> going to happen until we can integrate with the tools and culture of >> contemporary web development. Anyone have opinions on this? >> > > IMHO, many in the community agree with your points, but the community is > just not big enough at this point to address it all, as quickly as everyone > would like (i.e. already done). > > > I hope I can get better at ST and try to contribute myself to some >> things that interest me more... >> >> Cheers, >> >> >> Victor Stan >> >> Schedule me: >> http://quicklyschedule.**quicklyschedule.me/victor<http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor> >> > > Since you're in Toronto, have you ever come to the Toronto Smalltalk User > Group (http://smalltalk.toronto.on.**ca <http://smalltalk.toronto.on.ca>) > meetings? We've been meeting for 20 or more years. You just missed the > MagLev talk. The July Patio Night would be a good time to get filled in by > old-time TO-Smalltalkers. > > >

March 29, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] More GSoC ideas wanted, 3 days left ....

by Javier PimÃ¡s

Are we still on time for the party? *Title:* Smalltalk Native-Code Debugger. *Level*: Intermediate. *Possible mentor:* Guido Chari. *Possible second mentor:* Javier PimÃ¡s. *Description:* Smalltalk is a powerful environment for software developing. It allows the development of high-level abstractions, and it is highly dynamic and reflective, which promotes analyzing and changing objects at run-time. Debuggers are essential tools, particularly in Smalltalk because they allow developers to understand a program as well as to find and fix defects as they are running. Debugging native applications, on the other hand, is very hard. Many native applications can't be developed using high level abstractions. Furthermore, as they consist of native-code, debugging them requires understanding and modification of very low-level operations on raw memory at run-time [1], and also a close interaction with the operating system [2][3]. Using Smalltalk to control and debug low-level code would be a great aid in the native-code development process. It would allow not only to control programs status and trace, but also to easily develop a myriad of high-level tools that analyze and modify native-code as it runs. *Technical Details:* There are many different kinds of debuggers, and many mechanisms are already mature for implementing features in them[4]. Warp[5] is a recently born project to implement on Pharo a wrapper for the PTrace system call, the essential operating system debugging API. With the addition of already existing powerful high-level tools for low-level programming, as NativeBoost[6] and Waterfall[7], this project will allow to have a native debugger interface for any process from a Smalltalk image, and create a complete ecosystem for Native-Code developing from Smalltalk. The first steps will include understanding the ptrace system call, and about x86 instructions coding and decoding. This can be done by completing the wrapper of ptrace, which consists of only one function with many different functionalities and improving the disassembler for x86 binary code. After this the student will be able to develop tools for aiding in native-code debugging, like a specialized inspectors and debuggers for watching the value of variables, adding breakpoints, watchpoints, modifying memory and code. *Benefits to the Student:* * gain experience in high-level and low-level programming. * learn about how debuggers work under the hood * gain experience on the usage and development of a complete Smalltalk native-code development toolchain. * learn about native-code assembling and disassembling *Benefits to the Community:* * Lately, there has been more and more evidence that high-level written software for low-level development is starting to succeed. Smalltalk provides an ideal platform for exploring this domain because of its powerful reflective capabilities. NativeBoost already promotes lot of new possibilities for working dynamically on the Pharo environment with complex low-level tasks. More tools for having a complete and outstanding tool-chain are needed and the native debugging interface is one of the most prominent and promising. * A native-code debugger will help Smalltalk VM and low-level programmers, because it will leverage all their Smalltalk programming skills into low-level programming. It could even bring closer non-VM programmers to VM code, as it would remove a barrier of entrance to VM programming. * Having a fully working native-code debugger would be a killer app that can attract lots of low-level developers to Smalltalk, specially Virtual Machine and C/C++ programmers. Cheers, Guido and Javier. [1] http://mikecvet.wordpress.com/2010/08/14/ptrace-tutorial/ [2] http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~courses/coe518/LinuxJournal/elj2002-103-ptrace1.p… [3] http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~courses/coe518/LinuxJournal/elj2002-104-ptrace2.p… [4] How debuggers work: algorithms, data structures, and architecture, Jonathan B. Rosenberg, ISBN: 0-471-14966-7 [5] http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~melkyades/Warp [6] https://code.google.com/p/nativeboost/ [7] http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~mate/Waterfall On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 8:36 AM, Janko MivÅ¡ek <janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si>wrote: > Dear Pharoers, > > Ideas are slowly coming, 14 so far, but this is way below the 30+ in > previous years. So, stretch your brain, come with some more ideas, which > will be interesting for potential students and of course useful for our > community. Students you are again welcome to propose such idea by your > own. One student idea for now! > > Ideas so far: http://gsoc2013.esug.org/ideas > > To propose an idea just respond to this post by fulfilling this idea > template: > > Title: > > Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced) > > Possible mentor: (if already known) > > Possible second mentor: (if already known) > > Description > > Technical Details > > Benefits to the Student > > Benefits to the Community > > Best regards > Serge and Janko, > your this year GSoC admins > > > -- > Janko MivÅ¡ek > Aida/Web > Smalltalk Web Application Server > http://www.aidaweb.si > > -- Lic. Javier PimÃ¡s Ciudad de Buenos Aires

March 29, 2013

[ANN] Fuel Release Version 1.9

by Martin Dias

Hi all, We are happy to announce Fuel 1.9. Fuel is an open-source general-purpose object serialization framework developed in Pharo. You can find more information on our website [1]. The default set of packages of this version already comes in Pharo 2.0, so you it's not necessary to install it there. However, Fuel also works out-of-the-box in Pharo from 1.1 up to 2.0, as well as in Squeak 4.1 up to 4.4. You can see our documentation [2] for complete installation and use guides. Changes: - (feature) DoIt and not-installed CompiledMethods are fully serialized by default. - (fix) Date & DateAndTime (thanks Cami and Marcus) (already included in Fuel 1.8.1 and 1.8.2). - (feature) New hooks methods #fuelNew and #fuelNew: for custom instantiation (see "Hooking instance creation" in Customizing the Graph). - Globals: - Added #globalEnvironment: to specify where the globals are looked-up. (see "Changing the environment" in Managing Globals). - Explicit references to "Smalltalk globals" changed to "self class environment". - A SystemDictionary instance is not treated as global when it is not "Smalltalk globals". - Documentation: - General update - New Format Migration section. - New Built-in Header Support section. - (feature) Put back FLSerializer>>on:. - (optimization) New clusters for SmallInteger. - (optimization) New clusters for most common collections. - (feature) Built-in support for header (See Built-in Header Support): - pre and post materialization actions (clean closures). - attach additional objects. - materialize only the header. - (fix) Safer substitutions (see FLPluggableSubstitutionTest>>testPrivateExcluded). - (feature) Materialize .fuel files when drag&dropped in the image. - (cleanup) Removed unneeded cluster: FLWellKnownObjectsCluster. [1]: http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/web/pier/software/Fuel [2]: http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/web/pier/software/Fuel/Version1.9/Documentation<http://rmod.lille.inria.fr/web/pier/software/Fuel/Version1.8/Documentation> We want to thank developers of the community that enrich the project with code, issue reports and ideas. Have fun! Martin (on behalf of Mariano and Max, who worked a lot on this version)

March 28, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] in anybody out there? who uses 2.0?

by Yanni Chiu

On 28/03/13 11:40 AM, Yanni Chiu wrote: > On 28/03/13 2:32 AM, smalltalk wrote: >> which os do you use? > > It's MacOSX 10.5.8 (with a VM I built about 6 months ago), but my > build/deploy is Debian Linux. I meant to say that the latest PharoVM from pharo.org is used on Debian.

March 28, 2013