February 2017 - Pharo-users

[State Machine] Implementation for pharo
by sergio ruiz Feb. 16, 2017

Feb. 16, 2017

Hey, all.. Just checking in to see if there were any projects out there that included a stage machine. There is one that Iâve been using in Ruby for awhile that I really like. I would love if we have something like that available.. Thanks! ---- peace, sergio photographer, journalist, visionary Public Key: http://bit.ly/29z9fG0 #BitMessage BM-NBaswViL21xqgg9STRJjaJaUoyiNe2dV http://www.Village-Buzz.com http://www.ThoseOptimizeGuys.com http://www.coffee-black.com http://www.painlessfrugality.com http://www.twitter.com/sergio_101 http://www.facebook.com/sergio101

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[Data Modeling] approaches to data persistence
by sergio ruiz Feb. 16, 2017

Feb. 16, 2017

Hey, all.. I have Â been working on creating a REST interface using Teapot. In learning how to handle exceptions, I have been following along with the library example.Â One of the things i noticed was that, in the library example, they are modeling that data a little differently than i have been.. to persist a list of items (and easily retrieve them), i just gave the object an âidâ, and store them on a class variable as an OrderedCollection.. in the library example, I see something i really like. rather than saving an ordered collection, they save it as a dictionary. This dictionary goes { id -> object }.. this takes the id out of the the object (which i really like) and makes the id generation pretty much irrelevant.. my question.. is there any performance hit either way once this list grows to tens of thousands of records? thanks! ---- peace, sergio photographer, journalist, visionary Public Key:Â http://bit.ly/29z9fG0 #BitMessageÂ BM-NBaswViL21xqgg9STRJjaJaUoyiNe2dV http://www.Village-Buzz.com http://www.ThoseOptimizeGuys.com http://www.coffee-black.com http://www.painlessfrugality.com http://www.twitter.com/sergio_101 http://www.facebook.com/sergio101

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[ANN] Pharo Association: Join or Renew now!
by Marcus Denker Feb. 16, 2017

Feb. 16, 2017

Hi, The new Pharo Association website is up and running for some month. If you are a member, it will bug you once a year to renew. If you were a member in the past and have not been bugged by the system to renew until now, please subscribe now as a new member. (We added all active members, but as the old system was purely manual, people did not get asked to renew very consistently and you might not be in the system anymore) See the website for more information: https://association.pharo.org <https://association.pharo.org/> Marcus

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Does Capgemini still use Smalltalk?
by askoh Feb. 16, 2017

Feb. 16, 2017

http://www.silicon.co.uk/data-storage/ron-tolido-capgemini-205385 Interview with Ron Tolido, Capgemini CTO. He can be a powerful ally for Smalltalk. "What is your favourite technology of all time? That would have to be the MacBook Air; Iâve had quite a few by now and they still amaze me. In terms of programming languages, I still consider Smalltalk coming from outer space." -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Does-Capgemini-still-use-Smalltalk-tp4934520.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Team programming with Smalltalk
by Torsten Bergmann Feb. 16, 2017

Feb. 16, 2017

There is no time on my side to give a full and detailed answer to this as a full book could be filled on all the possibilities and options you have in Smalltalk. One should remember the following few points: 1. Breaking code is nothing specific to a language. The usual weapon also in Smalltalk is to monitor if something breaks - for instance by using CI. Continuous integration only makes real sense when you have tests. One should remember that "test first", "unit testing" and "Extreme programming" (XP) like many other things had their roots in Smalltalk. Because in dynamic languages testing using code was and is part of the culture (ranging from lively verifying with workspace expressions and inspectors up to fully written tests). The first unit testing framework "SUnit" was written by Kent Beck for Smalltalk (SUnit), later he ported it to Java with Erich Gamma on a flight to OOPSLA OO conference. Java helped to push the popularity afterwards. Meanwhile also static language enthusiasts have understood that it is better to rely on tests than type checking compilers and they now hurry up to follow what Smalltalk already had years ago. One last thing you should try: try to query your system how many test methods were written. When you solved this easily with a Smalltalk expression retry this in Java ;) 2. Commercial Smalltalks which are often used in big projects provide solutions which are repository based like the famous ENVY (written by OTI, was in VisualAge for Smalltalk from IBM, now VAST) or Store (VisualWorks). For more details try the commercial evaluation versions or read [1] or [2]. A screenshot of Envy can be seen in [3]. I worked with ENVY and it is really good - but mostly only for internal work/teams. If I remember correctly ENVY once was also available for VisualWorks (VW) ... but later got replaced for business or license reasons. I'm not sure about that point. Cincom developed Store for VW as a replacement which is also nice as it allows to work in an occasionally-connected mode, so work offline and push packages/versions later to a central team repo. In the open source world there are different solutions (including Monticello which is available for nearly all Smalltalk derivates) or newer solutions like FileTree or Iceberg allowing to work with Git. The workflow depends on the tool and your requirements. 3. Often it makes sense to automatically build and regular distribute a fresh daily developer images to the members of your team. This helps in later merging code. For instance Kapital (a big financial project from JP Morgan) works that way and I've seen that model very often. See [4] Again nothing special to Smalltalk. In more file based languages it also makes sense to stay close to the main line and merge as well as resynchronize with the team. In Pharo for instance we have the PharoLauncher that allows you to download any (fresh or old) image built provided by the open source community. 3. Versioning can be done on many levels. Simplest level is the image itself. Smalltalk not only has an VM and image concept - but also the concept of a changes file. If you evaluate a code expression, create or modify a class or method in the system this gets logged there. It prevents you from loosing code and it is easy to restore quickly for instance an earlier method versions/editions that one has implemented. Most Smalltalks now also work with packages and you can define package dependencies as well as declaring versions that fit together to provide a project, goodie or app (for instance with a Configuration class in Monticello) While in file based languages this is often done in an XML file (Maven for instance) or a JSON file in Smalltalk this is usually expressed with objects and classes again. This also makes it more flexible as you can very easily do queries on it or use refactoring tools to even restructure or reconfigure. 4. Usage of shared code repositories is very common also in Smalltalk. While you now can also use GitHub, GitLab, Gogs and others with Iceberg and friends in Smalltalk there are also repository systems implemented in Smalltalk itself like - SqueakSource (http://source.squeak.org, http://squeaksource.com) - SqueakSource3 (http://ss3.gemtalksystems.com) - SmalltalkHub (http://smalltalkhub.com) 5. Beside repositories where code and goodies are hosted one often finds registries with infos about loadable components. Pharo for instance has http://catalog.pharo.org which is accessible also directly from the image. 5. If you work in a team you can also use a custom update stream. This is how for instance open source projects like Pharo and Squeak are managed. So anyone can hit an "update" button to get the latest changes. In Pharo http://updates.pharo.org is used and you can have a look at UpdateStreamer class to see how easy that works over the web or how to customize it for own needs. 7. If one requires not only collaboration for the development team (coding) but would like to collaborate also with other projects members on other artefacts (Excel, project plans, documents, ...) then one should have a look at tools like this http://www.3dicc.com which is implemented in - guess what: SMALLTALK. This list could be endless ... the first few points should only give a glimpse on what is there and available. Have fun T. [1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/mastering-envydeveloper/56EE45AFF26F80… [2] http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/main/documentation/VisualWorks/SourceCodeMgm… [3] http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Installing_the_VisualAge_UML_Designer [4] http://www.slideshare.net/esug/13-yanndmonclair

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Inspecting calculated attributes
by Alistair Grant Feb. 15, 2017

Feb. 15, 2017

I'm developing a number of classes where it would be convenient to be able to inspect what might be described as calculated attributes, i.e. the result of a unary message send. The result isn't stored in an instance variable, but is still useful when inspecting. I can obviously develop an inspector extension for my application, but was wondering if there is a framework in place that allows a list of attributes to be declared that can also be inspected in a similar fashion to normal instance variables. Many thanks to Doru and everyone who has contributed to the GT Inspector framework. It has significantly influenced my development and the architecture of the software I'm currently working on (in a positive way, of course). Thanks, Alistair

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UK Smalltalk User Group Meeting
by Giovanni Corriga Feb. 14, 2017

Feb. 14, 2017

The next meeting of the UK Smalltalk User Group Meeting will be on Monday, February 27th. 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/236496720/ . See you there! (apologies if you have received this message twice)

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(no subject)
by Giovanni Corriga Feb. 14, 2017

Feb. 14, 2017

The next meeting of the UK Smalltalk User Group Meeting will be on Monday, February 27th. 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/236496720/ . See you there!

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Depending on MetaRepo instead of the target repo
by Peter Uhnak Feb. 14, 2017

Feb. 14, 2017

Hi, would it make sense to take configurations from metarepos instead directly from the source? And more imporantly: would be considered bad practice for users to do it right now? E.g. spec project: 'Magritte' with: [ spec className: #ConfigurationOfMagritte3; versionString: #stable; repository: 'http://smalltalkhub.com/mc/Pharo/MetaRepoForPharo50/main/' ]. v. repository: 'http://smalltalkhub.com/mc/Magritte/Magritte3/main/' pros: * the (e.g. Magritte) developer can freely change platforms * the ConfigurationOf could differ between various MetaRepo versions (combined with git it could reduce their complexity) * users do not have to think about where is the canonical repo (I've seen project that had copies on SS, STHub, GitHub, and a custom location -_-) cons: * the ConfigurationOf could differ between various MetaRepo versions (if the code is compatible, then two repos have to be updated Any thoughts? Peter

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[Off topic] six degrees of separation
by Ben Coman Feb. 14, 2017

Feb. 14, 2017

Idle trivia... I still like to get my daily hit of Slashdot, which linked an article by an author I like... http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/things-every-hacker-once-knew/ There I read an interesting teaser... On one widely deployed variety [of cellular modem] "AT+QLINUXCMD=" is a prefix that passes commands to an instance of Linux running in firmware on the chip itself. So I just have to goog that... AT QLINUXCMD 3G and the top link is... http://git.gnumonks.org/laforge-slides/plain/2016/cellular_modems_33c3/33c3… hey there Holger!! Cool stuff. I really should take a peek at your Pharo cell phone libraries sometime. cheers -ben

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