September 2019 - Pharo-users

Best Practices for Adapting JSON based APIs
by Eric Gade Sept. 8, 2019

Sept. 8, 2019

Hello all, Several times in the past couple of years I've found myself attempting to create objects that incorporate/adapt a given APIs specification -- in other words, building a mini, pharo based SDK for the given API. These are always JSON based APIs. I am not sure what the best practices are for doing this and am looking for some wisdom from this list. I have a few questions: 1. When passing around JSON-based objects for a given API, is it better to work with Dictionaries or to create (for example) specific objects for specific kinds of JSON objects in the API -- ie for Stripe, would you just work with objects that read and parse Dictionaries or implement Transaction, User, CreditCard objects, etc, etc? 2. If you create objects for each kind of entity rather than using dictionaries, what do you do in the (rather common) case where the API specification allows for a lot of malleability in a given JSON object that gets passed in for a given kind of request? Often times there can be arbitrary, non-required key-value pairs set by the user for a given transaction/request/whatever on the JSON object. I'm not sure how this would translate to Pharo objects, especially if we are creating a method-per-key 3. Do you create a method per what would be a key in the spec's JSON object? 4. If a given API spec is itself written in JSON, do we have some way of "automatically" creating the equivalent objects in Pharo (since both are machine readable)? I am currently considering developing a bare-bones proof of concept package for making a Matrix Client <https://matrix.org/docs/spec> but I'm a bit flummoxed about how to proceed, since there seem to be many ways to do this -- some that might be worse than others for testing, abstraction, etc, etc. Any advice is much appreciated. Thanks! -- , Eric

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Pharo Branding Organization on GitHub
by Torsten Bergmann Sept. 5, 2019

Sept. 5, 2019

Hi, the Pharo community is growing and our lovely Pharo system is an innovation driver with cool tools and projects but it is also used in real projects in research and business setups. There are still many entries left on all our TODO lists - not only in shaping the next stable Pharo release(s) but also in bringing more attention to people about what Pharo is all about. A few of us already follow a well know marketing phrase: âDo good and talk about it!â as some report about Pharo news in BLOGS, on TWITTER or by writing articles on MEDIUM.com or even books. I also like that we have a growing number of YOUTUBE videos about Pharo. We also have a regular Newsletter - even a Facebook page, ... This gives visibility to Pharo activities and is already a good step in doing some advertising. An additional important lesson in successful marketing is that one has to give a homogenous "Brand Identity" to a project or product to be easily recognizable and rememberable over time. We already have the nice lighthouse and use it all over - but often it is hard to find the logo or other marketing material in correct size or correct graphics format. We should improve on that side too. As we work mostly with git I therefore now have setup a new organization "pharo-brand": https://github.com/pharo-brand that should give easy access and group existing branding material in one place. The site now already includes the following three projects: 1. pharo-brand-material This should be the place for "logo" and "logo-flat". In the subdirectories you will find the logo in three different variations: - logo composed of text + icon + beacon - logo composed of icon + beacon - logo beacon only including subdirectories for "vector" (like SVG, PDF) and "screen" formats (like PNG, BMP, ...) 2. pharo-github-images These are the Icons i created for the various github organizations like - https://github.com/pharo-project - https://github.com/pharo-nosql - https://github.com/pharo-rdbms - https://github.com/pharo-contributions - https://github.com/pharo-brand and a template for additional ones 3. pharo-jingle A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising. Jingles are a form of sound and or video branding - when you see it often as an intro or outro you will more easily remember the brand name (Pharo in this case). This repository includes a "Pharo jingle" that can be used as a start or end section within own custom videos about Pharo and related projects. The short video jingle was created using a free video software called OpenShot using a sound jingle from freesound.org - Pharo_HDV720_24p_1280x720.mp4 - Pharo_HDV1080_25p_1920x1080.mp4 - Pharo_HDV1440_25p_1440x1080.mp4 Note that the jingle is currently a proposal - if you have better ones we can discuss it within the community on the mailinglist. I hope the repos will improve a little bit the situation in finding and organizing the brand material. Feel free to comment and give feedback or even add marketing material (templates, icons or other) yourself to the repos. Thanks T.

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Re: [Pharo-users] [Pharo-dev] [ANN] Pharo Headless - Beta (Actually what is between Alpha and Beta)
by tesonep＠gmail.com Sept. 5, 2019

Sept. 5, 2019

Hi, the repos is https://github.com/pharo-project/opensmalltalk-vm in the headless branch Cheers, Pablo On Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 11:07 AM Tudor Girba <tudor(a)tudorgirba.com> wrote: > > Hi, > > Thanks for the answers! > > Could you point me to where the platforms for minheadless are (which repository should we look at)? Also, to the build scripts that are used to build it? > > Cheers, > Doru > > > > On Aug 12, 2019, at 10:56 AM, tesonep(a)gmail.com wrote: > > > > Hi, > > The executables are not the same. > > We have 2 different now: the Stock VM (that is downloaded by the > > launcher, and it is the default download in Zero-conf), and the > > headless VM (this is downloaded by zero-conf when using > > vmLatestHeadless). > > > > Those platforms are not representative we currently have: OSX, > > Windows, and Linux all 64bits. We are working in ARM 32bits. > > In the near future, I will work on validating different flavors of > > Unix, but again It depends on the roadmap, and they are not there now. > > > > If someone requires some other platform we can talk to see how it > > can fit in the roadmap. > > > > Cheers, > > Pablo > > > > On Mon, Aug 12, 2019 at 10:03 AM Tudor Girba <tudor(a)tudorgirba.com> wrote: > >> > >> Hi, > >> > >> Yes. We will be testing these days and we will come back with more details. > >> > >> Two more questions: > >> - Is minheadlessVM now integrated in the regular VM binary or are the two different artifacts? > >> - Also are the platforms from https://github.com/pharo-project/opensmalltalk-vm/tree/pharo/platforms representative for minheadlessVM? > >> > >> Cheers, > >> Doru > >> > >> > >> > >>> On Aug 12, 2019, at 9:11 AM, tesonep(a)gmail.com wrote: > >>> > >>> Hi Doru, > >>> can you give us more insight of the errors? Because there should > >>> not be changes in the behavior of the VM. Maybe there are issues, we > >>> have used the Pharo tests as a guarantee and we are laking some tests. > >>> > >>> Cheers, > >>> Pablo. > >>> > >>> On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 9:04 PM Tudor Girba <tudor(a)tudorgirba.com> wrote: > >>>> > >>>> Hi, > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>>> On Aug 11, 2019, at 5:29 PM, ducasse <stepharo(a)netcourrier.com> wrote: > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>>> On 11 Aug 2019, at 13:19, Tudor Girba <tudor(a)tudorgirba.com> wrote: > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Excellent news! > >>>>>> > >>>>>> I should say that for GT we are currently using the minheadlessVM (Ronieâs work) out of the opensmalltalk-vm repo (https://bintray.com/opensmalltalk/vm/cog) and it works remarkably well. > >>>>>> > >>>>>> We started to play with your minheadlessVM. So far it looks like there are differences, although I am sure they are not large. > >>>>> > >>>>> like what? > >>>> > >>>> I do not know yet, but running GT in headless opens the window with the one from opensmalltalk-vm, but not with the new one. We did not yet look into details, but we will. > >>>> > >>>> Cheers, > >>>> Doru > >>>> > >>>> > >>>>>> So, what is the difference between the minheadlessVM built by you versus the one from opensmalltalk-vm? > >>>>>> > >>>>>> Cheers, > >>>>>> Doru > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>>> On Aug 8, 2019, at 9:53 AM, tesonep(a)gmail.com wrote: > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> TL;DR; > >>>>>>> ====== > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> For the anxious, you can get real headless vm and image from zero-conf. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> $ wget get.pharo.org/64/80+vmHeadlessLatest | bash > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Zero conf scripts remain unchanged for users. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> However, if you are launching the VM by hand from the executable > >>>>>>> instead of the launcher scripts (pharo and pharo-ui) as in > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> $ ./pharoexecutable Pharo.image > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> the image will launch in headless mode and will not open a window. > >>>>>>> To launch it in headfull, you can use the --interactive argument after > >>>>>>> the image, which will make the image open a window using SDL2. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> $ ./pharoexecutable Pharo.image --interactive > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Long version > >>>>>>> ============ > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Hi, this mail is the happy intermediate result of the work that us, > >>>>>>> the Pharo Consortium Team, has been doing in the last couple of > >>>>>>> months. > >>>>>>> Our main objective is to have a real headless implementation of Pharo > >>>>>>> where all the responsibility to open or not a World window (or other) > >>>>>>> is handled by the image. > >>>>>>> For doing so we have done a series of modifications in the image and > >>>>>>> the VM side. > >>>>>>> We consider this is the path that Pharo 8 and following versions > >>>>>>> should follow, as it will severely improve server-side and command > >>>>>>> line Pharo and in building custom desktop applications. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> These modifications are available only in 64-bits machines (Windows, > >>>>>>> OSX, and Linux). > >>>>>>> ARM32 and 64bits headless is in the roadmap, but it is delayed because > >>>>>>> we have prioritized our three major platforms for this first couple of > >>>>>>> months. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> All this work is based in Opensmalltalk-VM and Ronnie's initial work > >>>>>>> on headless. > >>>>>>> We are really grateful to all the contributors in the history of this > >>>>>>> nice product. > >>>>>>> To achieve a real headless VM we have brought modifications in the > >>>>>>> source tree because most of the platform code to open and manipulate > >>>>>>> windows is not required anymore. > >>>>>>> Instead, we use the SDL2 library that implements a nice layer on top > >>>>>>> of the OS and allows us to manage on the image side through FFI. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> So this mail is now an open call for (beta?)testing. > >>>>>>> The sources of the current VM we are building are in the headless branch in > >>>>>>> https://github.com/pharo-project/opensmalltalk-vm > >>>>>>> And we have set up a CI that is both building and testing the VM in > >>>>>>> https://ci.inria.fr/pharo-ci-jenkins2/job/pharo-vm/job/headless/ > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> For the future we have a lot of ideas, that will wait for another long > >>>>>>> email or a beer-talk @ESUG. > >>>>>>> We want to hear your ideas!! > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Image-Side Improvements > >>>>>>> ======================= > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> - The image handles the creation or not of the main world window. > >>>>>>> - We incorporated the idea of World renderer, where different backends > >>>>>>> are used to render the world. > >>>>>>> - We have 3 backends: VM support (compatibility with non-headless > >>>>>>> VMs), and OSWindow with two backends: SDL and GTK3+. > >>>>>>> - The modifications in the image are fully backward compatible with > >>>>>>> the non-headless VM and are pushed since weeks in the latest 8.0 > >>>>>>> image. > >>>>>>> - We move the handling of events to the image side when using SDL and > >>>>>>> GTK3+, opening the door to a richer set of events and finer-grained > >>>>>>> control over them. > >>>>>>> - SDL and GTK versions are implemented using FFI calls. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> VM-Side Improvements > >>>>>>> ==================== > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> - VMMaker code migrated to Tonel thanks to Feenk and included in the > >>>>>>> repository of the VM. > >>>>>>> - Making VMMaker execute in Pharo 7 and 8. > >>>>>>> - Removing GPL code from the VM repository (GDB). > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> - Slowly adding new tests for the JIT / Slang and VMGeneration. > >>>>>>> - Restructuring of the source code. > >>>>>>> - A new simpler CMake build. > >>>>>>> - Generate VM code from Slang on each build. > >>>>>>> - A CI process to validate (including the run of the tests in Pharo > >>>>>>> and the ones adding to the VM). > >>>>>>> - Simplification of the codebase. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> - Maximize the reuse of code between the platforms (preferring the > >>>>>>> standard versions over the platform-specific). > >>>>>>> - Cleaning up duplicated code. > >>>>>>> - All the plugins are now external plugins. > >>>>>>> - The VM is now a dynamic library. This is a first step towards > >>>>>>> embedding Pharo into other applications. > >>>>>>> - The main executable is a thin frontend (you can change it or > >>>>>>> implement your own). > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> - Removing unused plugins. > >>>>>>> - Improved crash dump. Especially the crash dump works now in Windows 64bits. > >>>>>>> - Dummy implementation of Security plugin (it is going away.... eventually). > >>>>>>> - Cleanup of SSL, UUID, and Socket plugin. > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> - Cleanup of conditional code (Still to improve). > >>>>>>> - Improving the types used in the functions (we have to be neat to be > >>>>>>> multiplatform/multi-arch). > >>>>>>> - Improving the lookup of modules > >>>>>>> - Improving the logging of the VM > >>>>>>> - Improving the handling of VM arguments > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Thanks a lot for reading so long!! > >>>>>>> We hope you enjoy the VM and please tell us all the problems you find!! > >>>>>>> > >>>>>>> Pablo, Guille, and Esteban > >>>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> -- > >>>>>> feenk.com > >>>>>> > >>>>>> "Being happy is a matter of choice." > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>>> > >>>> > >>>> -- > >>>> feenk.com > >>>> > >>>> "Speaking louder won't make the point worthier." > >>>> > >>>> > >>> > >>> > >>> -- > >>> Pablo Tesone. > >>> tesonep(a)gmail.com > >>> > >> > >> -- > >> feenk.com > >> > >> "What is more important: To be happy, or to make happy?" > >> > >> > > > > > > -- > > Pablo Tesone. > > tesonep(a)gmail.com > > > > -- > feenk.com > > "The coherence of a trip is given by the clearness of the goal." > > > > > > > > -- Pablo Tesone. tesonep(a)gmail.com

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SequenceableCollection>>#allButFirst: inconsistence across subclasses
by Julien Sept. 5, 2019

Sept. 5, 2019

Hello, I opened that issue: https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/issues/4442 <https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/issues/4442> And I think to fix it we need to actually discuss about what we want. #allButFirst: behaves differently depending on the actual type of sequenceable collection when argument is greater than collection size. For instance: #(1 2) allButFirst: 3. "PrimitiveFailed signaled" (LinkedList with: 1 with: 2) allButFirst: 3. "PrimitiveFailed signaled" (OrderedCollection with: 1 with: 2) allButFirst: 3. "an OrderedCollection() Â» The question is then, who is right? Should #allButFirst: with an argument greater than the collection size raise an error Or Should #allButFirst: with an argument greater than the collection size returns an empty collection ? I asked a few people about it @ ESUG and it appears that the expected behaviour from #allButFirst: is not the same to all people. We need to decide so we improve consistence of collections. And then, we need to document that with a test :-). Cheers. Julien --- Julien Delplanque Doctorant Ã lâUniversitÃ© de Lille http://juliendelplanque.be/phd.html Equipe Rmod, Inria BÃ¢timent B 40, Avenue Halley 59650 Villeneuve d'Ascq NumÃ©ro de tÃ©lÃ©phone: +333 59 35 86 40

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SMark package on github now
by Serge Stinckwich Sept. 4, 2019

Sept. 4, 2019

Dear all, SMark package is now on github here: https://github.com/smarr/SMark Thank you Max for your work on this :-) Cheers, -- Serge Stinckwich Int. Research Unit on Modelling/Simulation of Complex Systems (UMMISCO) Sorbonne University (SU) French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) University of YaoundÃ© I, Cameroon "Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute." https://twitter.com/SergeStinckwich

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Connection Timed Out
by Richard Kenneth Eng Sept. 4, 2019

Sept. 4, 2019

I have a Teapot application running under Linux and nginx. From time to time, I get the following error: *ConnectionTimedOut: Data receive timed out.* Otherwise, the Teapot application works fine, even with this error message. Can anyone tell me what or where it's timing out, and how can I change the timeout value? Thanks.

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Exercism - creating fresh image with previously submitted exercises
by DavidBajger Sept. 3, 2019

Sept. 3, 2019

Hi Tim & Pharo Exercism contributors!I had a chance to come back to my exercism challenges and tried to create new image for continuing on solutions. I've tried to load manually previously submitted/completed exercises into fresh image (with Exercism loaded) and found few issues. Here is my list: */Batch loading/* 1) It would be great to have menu item to "Batch load already submitted exercises", so I should create issue on Github for this enhancement, right? */Renamed exercises/* 2) I faced few challenges when loading my already posted exercises and one of them was renamed package and class. My old solution was in different package and class was named differently too, so I had to rename class with solution to new name, so the tests would be green again. I had to move class to new package as well. Examples are: ResistorColorDuo(new class name) <-> ResistorColors (old)MatchingBrackets(new class name) <-> BracketPush(old)Is there a way, to have some migration mechanism as part of loading the exercise into image, which would rename class (and package) automatically and resubmit solution again? */Loading subclasses with missing references to superclass/* 3) Some of my solutions are using more classes and sub-classes, for some reason loading such exercise failed, because it tried to load subclass first without having superclass loaded. So workaround for this was to create superclass as stub manually and load exercise again. I had to move classes to correct package, but somehow I struggle to understand what is really right package name (screenshots below). <http://forum.world.st/file/t371519/2019-08-29_10_48_51-Clipboard.png> <http://forum.world.st/file/t371519/2019-08-29_bowling_error_class_missing.p…> <http://forum.world.st/file/t371519/2019-08-30_package_exercism_or_exercise.…> */Exercises in independent packages /* 4) Old way of organizing Exercism exercises was using package extension of package Exercism, which I found a bit more well-arranged than using package for each exercise. Is there a reason for having each exercise in standalone package? I guess there is a good reason for that. <http://forum.world.st/file/t371519/2019-08-30_package_extensions.png> <http://forum.world.st/file/t371519/2019-08-30-exercism-packages.png> *Thanks for your insights!* David ----- David Bajger -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html

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SLE 2019: Call for Endorsements - Most Influential Paper (MIP) Award
by Andrei Chis Sept. 2, 2019

Sept. 2, 2019

------------------------------------------------------------------------ Call for Endorsements: ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering (SLE) - Most Influential Paper Award SLE MIP Awards: http://www.sleconf.org/mip Follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/sleconf SLE 2019: https://conf.researchr.org/home/sle-2019 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Starting in 2019, the ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Software Language Engineering (SLE) delivers annually an award to the Most Influential Paper (MIP) presented at the SLE conference held 10 years prior to the award year. The SLE MIP Award distinguishes the authors of the paper having the greatest impact (either scientific, societal or industrial). The papers are judged by their influence over the past decade. The SLE MIP Award is delivered by the current members of the Steering Committee (SC) of the conference, considering: i) endorsements from the community, and ii) the synthesis of some facts and metrics collected in advance by selected SC members. The vote is by majority of the SC members, after a discussion during the online meetings. Authors are informed at once, and awarded at the coming conference. In 2019 we offer two awards: one for the authors of the MIP from the 2009 program (http://www.sleconf.org/2009/Program.html) and another one for the authors of the MIP from the 2008 program (http://www.sleconf.org/2008/program.html) back to the first edition of the conference. SLE MIP Award 2019: - Program SLE 2009: http://www.sleconf.org/2009/Program.html; - Endorsement: http://tiny.cc/slemip2019 (deadline: Sep. 20th, 2019) SLE MIP Award 2018: - Program SLE 2008: http://www.sleconf.org/2008/program.html; - Endorsement: http://tiny.cc/slemip2018 (deadline: Sep. 20th, 2019)

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New Streams & Converters
by Sean P. DeNigris Sept. 1, 2019

Sept. 1, 2019

How would I do the following with the new streams (was working in 6.1, now "Instance of ZnCharacterReadStream did not understand #converter:"): aFileRef readStreamDo: [ :str | str converter: ISO88592TextConverter new; upToEnd ]. ----- Cheers, Sean -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html

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VW vs Pharo Performance
by Richard Kenneth Eng Sept. 1, 2019

Sept. 1, 2019

https://benchmarksgame-team.pages.debian.net/benchmarksgame/fastest/vw-phar… Is VisualWorks really faster than Pharo? Why???

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