November 2016 - Pharo-users

Re: [Pharo-users] about balkanisation

by Dimitris Chloupis

On Sun, Nov 6, 2016 at 6:22 PM Stephan Eggermont <stephan(a)stack.nl> wrote: > Kilon wrote: > > If you really want to embrace Github , kill Smalltalkhub > > We are not close to doing that. We'll need > Monticello support indefinitely, and at least a few years two-way. And > that assumes we automatically migrate all open projects. > > First we need good workflows that also work for complex projects. That > includes cross-platform projects like Seaside > > Stephan > I remember the first time I asked about Pharo and Git maybe 3 years ago , you are one of the first to tell me exactly what you saying now, Pharo is not close to be ready for Git. My first assumption was that you were wrong but respecting your experience as a Smalltalk coder I decided to not fully embrace Git and instead continue to have my project both in Git and in StHub. Few months in this experiment and I confirmed what I suspecting all along that you were wrong. Git requirements is basically non existent, it mainly works with text files and with less support for binary files. Pharo does not need anything but text files to be ready for Git. We had text files since forever with fileouts and became more convenient with filetree. You are also wrong about Seaside kind of projects. Its actually ironic to talk about complex projects when Git itself was made by the creator of Linux and the Linux kernel developers have been using it for the Linux kernel for ages. Actually one of the reasons why Linux created Git was because he was disappointed how slow and cumbersome SVN was with big and complex projects and to this day Git's speed and ability to handle enormous complexity with ease is what makes it first choice for many projects and probably the most popular VCS. Aa such not only SmalltalkHub has been an extremely poor alternativre to Github , its claims like yours that keep the Pharo community using tools that extremely limited , buggy and close to nowhere as Smalltalky enough. I am not talking about here just for Smalltalkhub but also Monticello. That weird Gui thing , that is just weird and sometimes is also weird. If however here we talk personal taste, if people want to recreate tools that exist outside the pharo image because they prefer to stay inside the pharo image , I am not against that but then I never criticised personal taste. Its a free world after all. Tools like Iceberg are more than welcomed as long as I can easily remove them from my image. Personally the only toolset I will be implementing will be a tool to completely bypass monticello and filetree and instead mark classes for export and code will be exported most likely in a fileout format automatically each time I hit accept in the browser.

Nov. 7, 2016

Re: [Pharo-users] about balkanisation

by Esteban Lorenzano

Hi, If anyone *ever* thought we are moving to git because is the new stuff, I need to clarify several things: 1) you donât know me :) 2) git is not new-cool stuff since a couple of years so is not that we are jumping into anything fancy shiny new (we should be trying to use docker as monticello repositories if that would be the case). Now, letâs talk for real: suppose for a second that you are a software architect (whatever that means) that has in your shoulders the responsibility of drive forward this amazing project called is Pharo. Pharo is a HUGE project with a lot of composants all of them moving. Many times because people introduces changes, others because changes affects others (this is not cool, but happens a lot) and some other simply time passes and world changes around us, which also makes our vision of things change. Now, in this context, as a software architect you do an analysis of risk and you get that Pharo has a lot of them, I will quote just a couple: - As a âmoving targetâ, maintainability is the first big issue: the accidental complexity of the system tends constantly to increase (sometimes, as with some version, at speeds you wouldnât believe it). Also, incorporating new tools means new things to maintain, constantly. - We do not have enough resources. No idea if we will ever get enough resources, but we do not have enough people to keep maintaining everything and in addition iterate to evolve Pharo. Of course we benefit of been a large community with many people contributing but that is an advantage but also a risk. - People pushes their own agendas. This is perfectly ok, but that means the effort is not measurable nor dirigible :) - tools are OLD. Many of them (including monticello) were built for a world who do not exists any more: software projects are *different* now: bigger, multi-platform, multi-language, N-tier, etc., etc. etc. - â¦ (I can continue all day detecting risks) Now, always as a software architect, you detected an important amount of risks that can make fail your project, and then you have to take decisions to mitigate this risks. One possibility is stop moving. Freezing that part will add a lot of stability to the systemâ¦ just we will using a relic, and the world will continue changingâ¦ others have followed this path. Pharo vision is (and has always been) otherâ¦ we need, we want to continue moving. So this solution cannot be taken. Other solution is to hire more people. Of course, no money and no money means no more people. Another solution that cannot be taken. So we arrive to a third solution: Reduce the amount of things that needs to be maintained and are ânon essentialâ, so we can concentrate in developing what is actually our thing: we do Pharo. Replacing Monticello with git goes in this direction: - it allows us to stop maintaining sthub (or any other pharo-based repository). Letâs face it: we will NEVER develop a tool as good as github/gitlab/bitbucket/the next thing. Why? Because it is NOT OUT BUSINESS. They have developers there, whoâs only work is to do such tool. - but also: it allow developing sotfware projects in ways monticello donât: multi language, external sources, etc. - but also: it allow CI without us needing to maintain jenkins (another thing that we will able to not maintain anymoreâ¦ I spent far too much time there and I spent 1% of the time that Christophe spent there, for example). - but also: it reduces the level of âalienessâ that newcomers experiments when they arrive to Pharo (letâs face it: most people arrives to Pharo already knowing other languages and most of them are expecting a file-based way of sharingâ¦ many of them are expecting git, in fact). In other order of things: - I spent last week replacing a backend made in amber with a backend made in seaside just to remove amber from the equation: so something we need to maintain is pharo-exclusive (this is âarchitecture 101â: systems complexity increases exponentially for each language you add). - I spent last 3 months aligning the PharoVM with the CogVM, removing what was a âde factoâ fork, just to reduce the amount of maintenance effort we need to put there. And to join efforts with Eliot and all others (because joining a larger team and collaborate with them is also a way to incorporate more people into our own VM). - I spent months developing UFFI to remove NativeBoost from the equation with exactly the same purpose: reduce the amount of things we need to maintain. So, as Pharo architect, Pharo fireman, stabilisation faery, whatever you want to call me, it is my responsibility to be sure Pharo will continue moving forward, and this is my answer. But not just me. I work on RMoD team at INRIA. The research team purpose is precisely to support âsoftware evolutionâ. This means I have the luck of work with some of the best people in the world to ask for this kind of questions. And there is also the Pharo board, who is a group of professionals who knows a bit about pharo and software projects developing. So yesâ¦ if you ever thought we are people who jumps to the new-hyped-thing just because is thereâ¦ think again. Esteban > On 7 Nov 2016, at 07:48, phil(a)highoctane.be wrote: > > Mcz repos are useful. > > STH storage works nicely, that's more the frontend which si bitrotting. > > I actually have a local FTP based thing on my Synology and it is neat and needs no time to work. > > Did you ever look into Zinc and see there is also a server there for that? > > Now, GitHub is better for sharing as there is the *critical mass* there. And the tooling is very good. > > And we can stuff a lot of other things than mcz in it (and with Git LFS https://git-lfs.github.com/ <https://git-lfs.github.com/> we could even stuff images and mcz in there right away. This thing is next in line for inclusion in https://github.com/Pharophile/ExternalTools <https://github.com/Pharophile/ExternalTools> > > In pvt chats on Slack, there is this tension between moving forward and stabilizing stuff. I hope that with boostrap, we'll be able to have a stable core and LTS assemblies. > > Reinventing the wheel is fun. But it better has to be a better wheel. > > Let's alway thing about our "normal" > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc> > > We are at risk of boiling ourselves, in whatever plane we are. > > I like the progress and I hate to have to adapt. But once past the curve, life is actually better. Lots. > > Phil > > > > > On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 5:29 AM, Igor Stasenko <siguctua(a)gmail.com <mailto:siguctua@gmail.com>> wrote: > > > On 6 November 2016 at 17:21, Stephan Eggermont <stephan(a)stack.nl <mailto:stephan@stack.nl>> wrote: > Kilon wrote: > > If you really want to embrace Github , kill Smalltalkhub > > We are not close to doing that. We'll need > Monticello support indefinitely, and at least a few years two-way. And that assumes we automatically migrate all open projects. > > First we need good workflows that also work for complex projects. That includes cross-platform projects like Seaside > > > Oh, come on! Throw away everything you had.. and start using something new and trendy, rinse and repeat. Profit! > :) > > Stephan > > > > > > > -- > Best regards, > Igor Stasenko. >

Nov. 7, 2016

Re: [Pharo-users] [ALERT] Pharo by Example version 5 is about to be released

by Nicolai Hess

2016-11-07 9:52 GMT+01:00 Nicolai Hess <nicolaihess(a)gmail.com>: > > > 2016-10-27 13:32 GMT+02:00 Dimitris Chloupis <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com>: > >> In case someone missed it I will be doing a release for version 5 (pharo >> version = pbe version) this weekend , since we had Pharo 7 initiated few >> days ago. >> >> Essentially that means that the repo will be tagged for version 5, which >> means a git commit is associated as a last commit for that version and >> there will be a frozen release - download for Pharo by Example version 5. >> After that we move to Pharo By Example version 6 or PBE6 for short >> >> The repo wont change otherwise and the process of submitting commits, >> pull requests and issues remains the same. >> >> If you have found a flaw of any sort in the documentation , please open >> an issue in the github issue tracker that can be found here >> >> https://github.com/SquareBracketAssociates/UpdatedPharoByExample/issues >> >> I will try to fix any problem reported but if I cannot , the fix will >> have to move to version 6 >> >> As always thanks to all people contributing into the impossible .... >> making Pharo more amazing >> >> If you want to contribute feel free to do so with a pull request. >> >> Does not matter if you are beginner because even minor corrections like >> correcting mistakes in the grammar or content of the text, updated >> pictures, or just a few lines of extra info are more than enough and more >> than welcomed. Many Pharo beginners have already done so . >> >> -Salute to fellow Guardians of The Light >> > > > Duh, please don't advertise your own theme and tools and not in this > place. > In the chapter about the key tools, there is an introducion, listing all > tools (browser/finder/...) following by a description of this tools, > AND in between(!) a paragraph about themes and loading Nireas and silly > tool for editing this theme. > *simple* tool (BTW it does not work) > This is totally unrelated to the other content. > And if at all, I would only mention the dark theme ( as it is somhow > popular to have a dark theme), but not at this place, maybe > at the introduction where we show a first screenshot of the enviroment. > (But I don't use the dark theme, so I don't know if the Pharo 5 version > is "production ready". > > >

Nov. 7, 2016

Re: [Pharo-users] [ALERT] Pharo by Example version 5 is about to be released

by Nicolai Hess

2016-10-27 13:32 GMT+02:00 Dimitris Chloupis <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com>: > In case someone missed it I will be doing a release for version 5 (pharo > version = pbe version) this weekend , since we had Pharo 7 initiated few > days ago. > > Essentially that means that the repo will be tagged for version 5, which > means a git commit is associated as a last commit for that version and > there will be a frozen release - download for Pharo by Example version 5. > After that we move to Pharo By Example version 6 or PBE6 for short > > The repo wont change otherwise and the process of submitting commits, pull > requests and issues remains the same. > > If you have found a flaw of any sort in the documentation , please open an > issue in the github issue tracker that can be found here > > https://github.com/SquareBracketAssociates/UpdatedPharoByExample/issues > > I will try to fix any problem reported but if I cannot , the fix will have > to move to version 6 > > As always thanks to all people contributing into the impossible .... > making Pharo more amazing > > If you want to contribute feel free to do so with a pull request. > > Does not matter if you are beginner because even minor corrections like > correcting mistakes in the grammar or content of the text, updated > pictures, or just a few lines of extra info are more than enough and more > than welcomed. Many Pharo beginners have already done so . > > -Salute to fellow Guardians of The Light > Duh, please don't advertise your own theme and tools and not in this place. In the chapter about the key tools, there is an introducion, listing all tools (browser/finder/...) following by a description of this tools, AND in between(!) a paragraph about themes and loading Nireas and silly tool for editing this theme. This is totally unrelated to the other content. And if at all, I would only mention the dark theme ( as it is somhow popular to have a dark theme), but not at this place, maybe at the introduction where we show a first screenshot of the enviroment. (But I don't use the dark theme, so I don't know if the Pharo 5 version is "production ready".

Nov. 7, 2016

Re: [Pharo-users] [ALERT] Pharo by Example version 5 is about to be released

by Nicolai Hess

Am 27.10.2016 1:33 nachm. schrieb "Dimitris Chloupis" <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com >: > > In case someone missed it I will be doing a release for version 5 (pharo version = pbe version) this weekend , since we had Pharo 7 initiated few days ago. > > Essentially that means that the repo will be tagged for version 5, which means a git commit is associated as a last commit for that version and there will be a frozen release - download for Pharo by Example version 5. After that we move to Pharo By Example version 6 or PBE6 for short > > The repo wont change otherwise and the process of submitting commits, pull requests and issues remains the same. > > If you have found a flaw of any sort in the documentation , please open an issue in the github issue tracker that can be found here > > https://github.com/SquareBracketAssociates/UpdatedPharoByExample/issues > > I will try to fix any problem reported but if I cannot , the fix will have to move to version 6 > > As always thanks to all people contributing into the impossible .... making Pharo more amazing > > If you want to contribute feel free to do so with a pull request. > > Does not matter if you are beginner because even minor corrections like correcting mistakes in the grammar or content of the text, updated pictures, or just a few lines of extra info are more than enough and more than welcomed. Many Pharo beginners have already done so . > > -Salute to fellow Guardians of The Light The chapter "First Application" is great, just a some lines if code and the user has created his own little game. I love this.

Nov. 7, 2016

Re: [Pharo-users] About balkanisation

by Esteban Lorenzano

btw this is pharo-dev discussion, redirecting there. Esteban > On 7 Nov 2016, at 08:50, Esteban Lorenzano <estebanlm(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > We are developing Icebergâ¦ and I know is not enough :) > Which âunifying toolsâ are you referring ? > > I have followed very close your TOdE developmentâ¦ in a moment I was planning a migration of it for pure-pharo, justâ¦ lack of time as always and then later we started iceberg. > now, we are in the process of defining a process ;) who works for pharo and is the moment to build the bridges we need, but in general I think that staying "with a foot in two boatsâ can just work during a very short lapse of time, after that, the stream continues going and if you do not finish your jump into one of the boats you will be very fast in the water. > > What I mean is that we can help any transition, but at the end there is no way of having a ânice, coexistingâ ecosystem: we will have one OR the other, or something that does not works at all, but we will not have seamlessly one AND the other (which does not means people using monticello will be forced to use git tools or vice-versa, just that you will need to chose oneâ¦ right now many (many for real) of our problems come from the attempt of keeping our git support behaving as regular monticelloâ¦ and that way of doing has a limit. A limit I think we already passed. > > Anyway, if you can list what you think we will need for the transition, I will be very glad to see what we can do :) > > Esteban > >> On 7 Nov 2016, at 06:30, Dale Henrichs <dale.henrichs(a)gemtalksystems.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> On 11/6/16 1:12 PM, Tudor Girba wrote: >>> Hi Stef, >>> >>> I think that you are raising a valid point, and I actually agree with it. >>> >>> But I think there is another side of the coin as well. >>> >>> I think that right now we are in between worlds and this is not quite beneficial. Switching to GitHub is a significant effort, and treating it as business as usual will not work. That is why I think it is so important that we committed to the move for Pharo 7 and that we invest in the infrastructure. But, this will not be enough either if we do not get people to exercise it as soon as possible. >> Doru, there are also holes in the tool set that are not being addressed ... there are a number of critical tools that need to be created and I don't see anyone working on them .... >> >> I went through this transition 5 years ago with my tool set and with the proper set of tools approach the difficult transition will be a bit easier ... >> >> As it stands Pharo is standing with one foot in two boats ... there are the old Monticello tools and the new Git/Filetree tools and what is needed is a tool or two that can unify to both tool sets so that the transition between the two can be seamless ... these two sets of tools are not complicated and there working implementations that can be adapted to Pharo or used as a fairly detailed guide ... >> >> The confusion and frustration that I see now is not a surprise to me ... I wrote" the emails" at the beginning of this year because I saw that Pharo was finally reaching a critical point in its move to integrate git into the mainstream development environment and I knew that these types of issues were going to come up where Monticello and Git were going to create friction --- friction that can be reduced by creating some simple "unifying tools" ... >> >> I want to help, I have tried to help and I am still willing to help, but I cannot write the tools for Pharo ... >> >> Dale >> >

Nov. 7, 2016

Re: [Pharo-users] About balkanisation

by Esteban Lorenzano

We are developing Icebergâ¦ and I know is not enough :) Which âunifying toolsâ are you referring ? I have followed very close your TOdE developmentâ¦ in a moment I was planning a migration of it for pure-pharo, justâ¦ lack of time as always and then later we started iceberg. now, we are in the process of defining a process ;) who works for pharo and is the moment to build the bridges we need, but in general I think that staying "with a foot in two boatsâ can just work during a very short lapse of time, after that, the stream continues going and if you do not finish your jump into one of the boats you will be very fast in the water. What I mean is that we can help any transition, but at the end there is no way of having a ânice, coexistingâ ecosystem: we will have one OR the other, or something that does not works at all, but we will not have seamlessly one AND the other (which does not means people using monticello will be forced to use git tools or vice-versa, just that you will need to chose oneâ¦ right now many (many for real) of our problems come from the attempt of keeping our git support behaving as regular monticelloâ¦ and that way of doing has a limit. A limit I think we already passed. Anyway, if you can list what you think we will need for the transition, I will be very glad to see what we can do :) Esteban > On 7 Nov 2016, at 06:30, Dale Henrichs <dale.henrichs(a)gemtalksystems.com> wrote: > > > > On 11/6/16 1:12 PM, Tudor Girba wrote: >> Hi Stef, >> >> I think that you are raising a valid point, and I actually agree with it. >> >> But I think there is another side of the coin as well. >> >> I think that right now we are in between worlds and this is not quite beneficial. Switching to GitHub is a significant effort, and treating it as business as usual will not work. That is why I think it is so important that we committed to the move for Pharo 7 and that we invest in the infrastructure. But, this will not be enough either if we do not get people to exercise it as soon as possible. > Doru, there are also holes in the tool set that are not being addressed ... there are a number of critical tools that need to be created and I don't see anyone working on them .... > > I went through this transition 5 years ago with my tool set and with the proper set of tools approach the difficult transition will be a bit easier ... > > As it stands Pharo is standing with one foot in two boats ... there are the old Monticello tools and the new Git/Filetree tools and what is needed is a tool or two that can unify to both tool sets so that the transition between the two can be seamless ... these two sets of tools are not complicated and there working implementations that can be adapted to Pharo or used as a fairly detailed guide ... > > The confusion and frustration that I see now is not a surprise to me ... I wrote" the emails" at the beginning of this year because I saw that Pharo was finally reaching a critical point in its move to integrate git into the mainstream development environment and I knew that these types of issues were going to come up where Monticello and Git were going to create friction --- friction that can be reduced by creating some simple "unifying tools" ... > > I want to help, I have tried to help and I am still willing to help, but I cannot write the tools for Pharo ... > > Dale >

Nov. 7, 2016

Re: [Pharo-users] [ALERT] Pharo by Example version 5 is about to be released

by Nicolai Hess

Am 06.11.2016 21:04 schrieb "Dimitris Chloupis" <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com>: > > yeah as I said the chapter needs a complete rewrite. I am not even it is necessary to exist separately. > > On Sun, Nov 6, 2016 at 9:27 PM Nicolai Hess <nicolaihess(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> 2016-11-03 15:11 GMT+01:00 Nicolai Hess <nicolaihess(a)gmail.com>: >>> >>> >>> >>> 2016-11-03 15:02 GMT+01:00 stepharo <stepharo(a)free.fr>: >>>> >>>> Hi nicolai >>>> >>>> I started to work on the reflection chapter. >>> >>> >>> >>> The reflection chapter (and maybe some other too) could new some new screenshots. >> >> >> Actually, the reflection chapter needs some more rewrites (not only updated screenshots). Some examples just aren't >> applicable anymore because we don't have refactoring browser preinstalled and although Nautilus can do alot, its missing >> the full set of menus for creating scoped environments. >> I'll try to rewrite those parts. >> >>>> >>>> Now hacking PharoDoc :) >>>> >>>> Stef >>>> >>>> >>>> Le 3/11/16 Ã 14:29, Nicolai Hess a Ã©crit : >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> 2016-10-27 13:32 GMT+02:00 Dimitris Chloupis <kilon.alios(a)gmail.com>: >>>>>> >>>>>> In case someone missed it I will be doing a release for version 5 (pharo version = pbe version) this weekend , since we had Pharo 7 initiated few days ago. >>>>>> >>>>>> Essentially that means that the repo will be tagged for version 5, which means a git commit is associated as a last commit for that version and there will be a frozen release - download for Pharo by Example version 5. After that we move to Pharo By Example version 6 or PBE6 for short >>>>>> >>>>>> The repo wont change otherwise and the process of submitting commits, pull requests and issues remains the same. >>>>>> >>>>>> If you have found a flaw of any sort in the documentation , please open an issue in the github issue tracker that can be found here >>>>>> >>>>>> https://github.com/SquareBracketAssociates/UpdatedPharoByExample/issues >>>>>> >>>>>> I will try to fix any problem reported but if I cannot , the fix will have to move to version 6 >>>>>> >>>>>> As always thanks to all people contributing into the impossible .... making Pharo more amazing >>>>>> >>>>>> If you want to contribute feel free to do so with a pull request. >>>>>> >>>>>> Does not matter if you are beginner because even minor corrections like correcting mistakes in the grammar or content of the text, updated pictures, or just a few lines of extra info are more than enough and more than welcomed. Many Pharo beginners have already done so . >>>>>> >>>>>> -Salute to fellow Guardians of The Light >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> I found some problems, but I don't have time to report/fix them now, I 'll try to report them >>>>> later (today or tomorrow). >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> I know fixed most text in the chapter. At least there are no notes on tools that aren't there anymore and I cut those things that aren't true anyone. But I would like to do some more pass over it. Instead of just cutting, we could add some new things. Explaing the RB-Pattern syntax is maybe to much. But I would like to add it. Maybe I'll put some notes on criticbrower and QA.

Nov. 7, 2016

UK Smalltalk User Group Meeting - Monday, November 28th

by Giovanni Corriga

Hi, The next meeting of the UK Smalltalk User Group Meeting will be on Monday, November 28th. We'll meet at our usual venue The Counting House ( http://www.the-counting-house.com/) at 7pm. If you'd like to join us, you can just show up at the pub. You can also sign up in advance at the meeting's Meetup page: https://www.meetup.com/ UKSTUG/events/233683252/ . Thanks, Giovanni

Nov. 7, 2016

Re: [Pharo-users] about balkanisation

by phil＠highoctane.be

Mcz repos are useful. STH storage works nicely, that's more the frontend which si bitrotting. I actually have a local FTP based thing on my Synology and it is neat and needs no time to work. Did you ever look into Zinc and see there is also a server there for that? Now, GitHub is better for sharing as there is the *critical mass* there. And the tooling is very good. And we can stuff a lot of other things than mcz in it (and with Git LFS https://git-lfs.github.com/ we could even stuff images and mcz in there right away. This thing is next in line for inclusion in https://github.com/Pharophile/ExternalTools In pvt chats on Slack, there is this tension between moving forward and stabilizing stuff. I hope that with boostrap, we'll be able to have a stable core and LTS assemblies. Reinventing the wheel is fun. But it better has to be a better wheel. Let's alway thing about our "normal" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvmTSpJU-Xc We are at risk of boiling ourselves, in whatever plane we are. I like the progress and I hate to have to adapt. But once past the curve, life is actually better. Lots. Phil On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 5:29 AM, Igor Stasenko <siguctua(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > On 6 November 2016 at 17:21, Stephan Eggermont <stephan(a)stack.nl> wrote: > >> Kilon wrote: >> > If you really want to embrace Github , kill Smalltalkhub >> >> We are not close to doing that. We'll need >> Monticello support indefinitely, and at least a few years two-way. And >> that assumes we automatically migrate all open projects. >> >> First we need good workflows that also work for complex projects. That >> includes cross-platform projects like Seaside >> >> > Oh, come on! Throw away everything you had.. and start using something new > and trendy, rinse and repeat. Profit! > :) > > >> Stephan >> >> >> >> > > > -- > Best regards, > Igor Stasenko. >

Nov. 7, 2016