November 2015 - Pharo-users

Pharo RDBMS Support Survey
by Esteban A. Maringolo Dec. 23, 2015

Dec. 23, 2015

Hello all, I just created this survey (https://goo.gl/pcc9u8) to collect information about the users of RDBMS in Pharo. Please promote it in the social networks, so I can get as many responses as possible. URL: https://goo.gl/pcc9u8 I'll share the results in a month or before if I get 100 responses. :) Thank you! Esteban A. Maringolo

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[ANN] Multiple Desktop support for Pharo 5
by Torsten Bergmann Dec. 21, 2015

Dec. 21, 2015

Julien Delplanque provided this week a goodie to switch between "desktops" - but his initial solution was more or less hiding windows and not really switching between real Pharo worlds/desktops. I gave him some tips what could be done on the pharo-user list. Havent heard from him afterwards. Now I was able to spend a few hours on this topic myself and implemented a full multiple desktop solution myself. This works in Pharo 5 only (currently) and requires latest VM (at least on Windows) from files.pharo.org to get the keyboard shortcuts right. To try: Gofer new smalltalkhubUser: 'TorstenBergmann' project: 'DesktopManager'; configuration; loadDevelopment. The goodie has some nice features like keyboard navigation, world menu integration and even a custom spotter with preview of the desktops. Quick start: =========== - evaluate the above expression in a Pharo 5 image - check the world menu "Desktop" - you can press CTRL + D and then CTRL + A (= Desktop Add) to add a new desktop - you can press CTRL + D and then CTRL + D (= Desktop Desktop) to open the overview - you can press CTRL + D and then CTRL + P (= Desktop Previous) to navigate to the previous desktop - you can press CTRL + D and then CTRL + N (= Desktop Next) to navigate to the next desktop The code is hopefully a good example on how to build a custom spotter, shortcuts, inspector extensions, ... Additionally all this is described in a new article including screenshots and a guide on how to use this new goodie: https://medium.com/@astares/multiple-desktops-for-pharo-5cbc46f3179f Actually the article took more time to write than coding but I hope it helps explaining Pharo and why it is a power tool. Project is on http://www.smalltalkhub.com/#!/~TorstenBergmann/DesktopManager Article and code is still subject to change. Have fun T.

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Help needed: old issues issue tracker entries
by marcus.denker＠inria.fr Dec. 7, 2015

Dec. 7, 2015

Hi, The issue tracker has 658 open issues. This number is more or less constant. We are fixing and integrating *a lot*, alone the last 7 days we managed to close 89 issue tracker entries. But the older entries see not much work. Of course one reason is that everything fixable gets fixed and only hard cases remainâ¦ but cases can be âdifficultâ for many reasons. I would be nice if everyone could help and have a look at older issues: -> Still relevant? -> Maybe already fixed? -> Is the description good? -> What is the next action that needs to be done? And keep in mind that the issue tracker is not a TODO list. If you see something odd and put and issue âoh, this looks oddâ but there is no action for a year, does it really make sense to keep that issue open? Every open issue takes energy away from the others. So please check if issues make sense of this kind: -> âIt would be nice ifâ but not even important enough for the submitter to do -> TODO issues that are huge projects in themselves -> â¦. It would be nice if *you* would check the issue that you have been involved with the last months and see what is needed to solve them. Marcus

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Pharo Consortium New Gold Member: Thales
by marcus.denker＠inria.fr Dec. 4, 2015

Dec. 4, 2015

The Pharo Consortium is very happy to announce that Thales has joined the Consortium as an Gold Member. About - Thales: https://www.thalesgroup.com - Pharo Consortium: http://consortium.pharo.org The goal of the Pharo Consortium is to allow companies and institutions to support the ongoing development and future of Pharo. Individuals can support Pharo via the Pharo Association: http://association.pharo.org

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New Introductory Tutorial
by EuanM Dec. 4, 2015

Dec. 4, 2015

I've created Yet Another Smalltalk First Steps tutorial. This is intended as one of a series. It is designed to be cross-platform across Squeak 5 Pharo 4 Seaside 3.1 Cuis Dolphin 6 If you have experience running any of these systems on Windows, Linux or MacOS, please check to see if I have the instructions correct for your chosen pairing of Smalltalk and OS platform. (As you'll see when you look, I do not have detailed instructions for aspects of MacOS). The document is at: http://smalltalkinsmallsteps.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/get-smalltalk-up-and-ru… (It's intended to move to a different blog after this review process). I feel the need to do this as cross-Smalltalks tutorial because of findings and 4 charts I've placed at: http://smalltalkinsmallsteps.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/mindshare-of-smalltalk-… Essentially, Smalltalk mindshare and use is incredibly tiny, compared to other languages in the same space. (We all know this, but seeing it represented graphically has a more visceral effect, IMO) Aggregating interest in all the Smalltalks still does not bring more than a tiny proportion of the interest in, and use of, Ruby. In turn, Ruby is (quite understandably) small in comparison to JavaScript. Comparing interest in any specific Smalltalk is, predictably, smaller than the aggregate interest in Smalltalk. Our community seems determined to split itself into smaller and smaller sub-communities. I think we do ourselves a disservice this way. My initial contribution will be to try to provide some explicitly pan-Smalltalk beginners' tutorials, like this one. Cheers, and happy Smalltalking, EuanM

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[ANN] breakpoints and watchpoints working
by Johan Fabry Dec. 4, 2015

Dec. 4, 2015

Hi all, Marcus, Miguel Campusano and me have been working the last few weeks on getting breakpoints and watchpoints working for Pharo 5. Since a few days we have functionality that works for many cases and that is easily accessible. Itâs really cool, I urge you to try it out! Breakpoints: In Nautilus in the methods list you can add a breakpoint to a method, as well as a breakpoint that triggers once, or a breakpoint that takes a condition. (The last is still a bit complicated. Marcus promised that he will clean that up :-).) Also in the code pane the suggestions menu allows you to add a breakpoint to expressions. They will be highlighted in red, and an icon appears in the gutter. Clicking it removes the breakpoint and also bringing up the suggestions menu allows you to remove them. Watchpoints: Watchpoints are a simple mechanism to log the results of specific expressions. In the code pane the suggestions menu allows you to set a watchpoint. The expression is highlighted in red and in the gutter a green ball appears. Click it and you will have a simple UI that shows the last values recorded. (Actually the watchpoint records every execution and never throws anything away, so this can become a memory hog, be careful.) You can remove the watchpoint from the UI and from the suggestions menu. In our experiments we found both very useful and powerful, try them out and be sure to tell us if there are any problems ---> Save our in-boxes! http://emailcharter.org <--- Johan Fabry - http://pleiad.cl/~jfabry PLEIAD and RyCh labs - Computer Science Department (DCC) - University of Chile

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Re: [Pharo-users] PharoJS Status
by craig Dec. 2, 2015

Dec. 2, 2015

I just loaded PharoJS into a fresh v5 image, Â and I also had the DNU message until I loaded theÂ NewExternalWebBrowser package.Â Craig Sent from Samsung Mobile -------- Original message -------- From: Noury Bouraqadi <bouraqadi(a)gmail.com> Date:2015/11/30 5:48 PM (GMT+02:00) To: Any question about pharo is welcome <pharo-users(a)lists.pharo.org> Subject: Re: [Pharo-users] PharoJS Status Just tested with a fresh image and it worked. Noury On 30 Nov 2015, at 16:37, Andy Burnett <andy.burnett(a)knowinnovation.com> wrote: >>> Craig said Hi All, I'd like to start messing around with PharoJS.Â Can anybody tell what the status is?Â (Stable, broken, etc.) And, which Pharo version should I use for this? <<< I have just started playing with it. I have had some difficulty getting a running image. Following the instructions - should - work, but I found that I needed to install the NewExternalWebBrowser package separately before it would run. Cheers Andy

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Pharo for Data Visualization
by Volkert Dec. 1, 2015

Dec. 1, 2015

Is this possible with Pharo? http://www.asterank.com/3d/ BW, Volkert

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graph library in Pharo
by Peter Uhnak Dec. 1, 2015

Dec. 1, 2015

Hi, is there any graph library for pharo with algorithms for planarity testing, spanning trees, flow costs, etc.? Thanks, -- Peter

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Pharo productivity
by phil＠highoctane.be Dec. 1, 2015

Dec. 1, 2015

I have been using Pharo somewhat less in my current projects. Nevertheless, I needed a tool done fast and behaving correctly. Did it the TDD way with Pharo. Great experience. Great productivity. No messing around with external libraries, modules... 64-bit Linux compatibility would really help these days. But stuffing Pharo and 32 bit on a docker container works nicely too. Phil

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