- Pharo-users - lists.pharo.org

Little poll to help us improving Spotter

by stephane ducasse

Hi Pharoers Weâre gathering feedback to improve the Spotter tool in Pharo. The survey is quick and focuses on your experience with it, if you could take a few minutes to share your thoughts it would be great. Here's the link: https://sondages.inria.fr/index.php/319877?lang=en Best regards, Santiago StÃ©phane Ducasse http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr 06 30 93 66 73 "If you knew today was your last day on earth, what would you do differently? ....ESPECIALLY if, by doing something different, today might not be your last day on earth.â Calvin & Hobbes

Jan. 25, 2025

Pharo News of the Week 3/2025

by Marcus Denker

# Pharo News of the Week 3/2025 - [ANN] IWST 2024 proceedings is now online at https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3893/ - [Video] Phausto at the Audio Programmer meetup https://lucretiomsp.github.io/musicwithpharo/2025/01/16/phaustoAudioProgram… If you want to add your news to this list, use this form: https://tinyurl.com/4c89buy4 # The week on the Pharo Issue Tracker # Pharo 11 - Backport multibyte commit message fix to Pharo 11 #1877 https://github.com/pharo-vcs/iceberg/pull/1877 - Backport changes making #cascadeFor:initialExtent:world: for RealEstateAgent use integral positions when using the worldâs center to Pharo 11 #17604 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17604 # Pharo 12 - Backport changes making #recalculatePageWidths and #recalculatePageHeights on SpMorphicMillerAdapter set the coordinates and dimensions to integral numbers #1694 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1694 - Backport fix making #loadVersionFromFileNamed: on MCRemoteFileBasedRepository always answer the version #17615 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17615 # Fixes - Pharo 13 - more Robust CompiledMethod inspection, #936 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/936 - Fix #loadVersionFromFileNamed: on MCRemoteFileBasedRepository to always answer the version #17613 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17613 - Branch: 17625-Clean-window-menu, Fixes #17625 #17626 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17626 - 17597 the code formatter does not pretty print well ffi calls #17598 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17598 - Branch: Another FFI call variation not formattable + add customisatâ¦ #17601 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17601 - Trying to make sure that we get the correct method class once we set â¦ #17595 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17595 - fix(sorting): Make many tables in inspector extensions properly sortable #924 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/924 # Features - Allow to load a package in another environment #17591 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17591 # Newtools - added WindowManager package to exploit new SpClosedWindowPresenter #940 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/940 - Branch: removeUnusedPreferredExtent, Fixes # 935 #937 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/937 - Branch: Pharo13, Removing preferredExtent instance variable of class and code #932 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/932 # VM - Prepare release v10.3.3 #901 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/901 - Update build and dev VM and image to latest pharo 12 release #900 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/900 - force non-shallow checkout on CI #899 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/899 - Normalize variable #897 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/897 - Adding test to test Ephemerons in the Old Space #702 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/702 # Spec - Make #transferFor:from: on SpMorphicTreeTableDataSource delegate to the adapter #1679 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1679 # iceberg (git) - Redo of PRâ¯#1873 #1880 https://github.com/pharo-vcs/iceberg/pull/1880 - Remove duplicated methods #1876 https://github.com/pharo-vcs/iceberg/pull/1876 - renamed all ice git hub classes from model to presenter ( not model anymore) #1874 https://github.com/pharo-vcs/iceberg/pull/1874 # Cleanup - Cleaningtest that there are no selectors remaining that are sent but not implemented #17612 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17612 - Move LocalProcessException and LocalRecursionStopper to debugger packages #17621 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17621 - Move DependentsArray from Kernel to System-Model #17620 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17620 - Clean TransferMorph #17619 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17619 - Remove dependencies to the AST #17616 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17616 - Remove some methods with equivalent in superclass in Calypso #17592 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17592 - Remove duplicated methods #939 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/939 - One less reference to RBParser + does not uselessly reformat code. #934 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/934 - Fix testLocalMethodsOfTheClassShouldNotBeRepeatedInItsTraits #938 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/938 - little post migration and all the tests are green #931 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/931 - Remove duplicated methods #1699 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1699 - Remove unused class variable recently introduced #1698 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1698

Jan. 24, 2025

Re: "Subject in SUnit Tests" â New blog post on all: objects all: theTime

by Richard O'Keefe

This makes the assumption that there is, most of the time, a single, unique, object that the test is clearly about. I hasten to admit that my unit testing practice needs a lot to be desired. But it has not been my experience that there *is* any such object much of the time. For example, to test a method, I will sometimes create two equal objects, manipulate one of them in the old trusted way, manipulate the other in the new way, and then see if the objects are equal again. Which then is *the* subject? The answer is neither, because what the test is *about* is not an object, but a method. Or again, I open a stream to a new file, create a complex object, persist it on the stream, close the stream, open another stream reading from the file, reconstitute an object from it, and then check that the two objects are isomorphic. Which is *the* subject? Neither, because what I am testing is the encoding and decoding methods, not the objects. The key paragraph is this one: <quote> One could argue that there is not always a single object under test. In some situations that is correct, for instance when testing the interaction between objects. But in my experience, most unit tests have a single object under test. </quote> And it is *this* that we really need a blog post on. I am very ready to believe that you are a much better tester than I am. (That wouldn't be hard.) But *something* interesting is going on when I think in terms of testing classes and methods to the point where I find the idea of testing a particular object almost incomprehensible, yet you think this is the norm. I take some comfort from the fact that the Gherkin language in Cucumber (and why oh which has nobody bothered to write down a proper grammar, let alone even an informal semantics, for it? How am I supposed to know what is and what is not legal Gherkin?) goes out of its way to conceal the existence of subjects, should they exist, from test reviewers, and calls what a test is about a "feature". Here are two tests for the Quaternion class: testMultiplicationByScalarCommutes sampleExactScalars do: [:x | sampleExactQuaternions do: [:y | self assert: (x*y) = (y*x)]]. testMultiplicationOfPowersCommutes sampleExactQuaternions do: [:x | |y z| y := x squared. z := x cubed. self assert: (y*z) = (z*y)]. These two methods test important properties of the #* method. Here's another one, part of testing the test data.. testExactScalarsAreExactScalars sampleExactScalars do: [:each | self assert: each isScalar. self assert: each isExact]. This tests the *methods* #isScalar and #isExact, and indirectly the code that generates the test data. It's not about any particular object. Nor is it about *one* method. It's very hard to write a test case that tests only one method. In fact my own rather embarrassing experience is that when a test case of mine failed it quite often wasn't the method I thought I was testing that was wrong. Returning to the persistence example, it's not testing #saveOn: (object saveOn: byteStream) or #restore (byteStream restore). It's testing that the two methods are properly related. It would be wrong to call it #testSaveOn: and it would be wrong to call it #testRestore. There's a distinction here: it *is* possible to write methods to test #saveOn: by itself, by writing various objects and checking that you get the right bytes. But if the external representation is changed (and I need to change it), the tests for #saveOn: and #restore as such will have to be rewritten, while the tests for #saveOn: and #restore *together* will not. Cucumber offers an insight here, I think. A scenario in Gherkin is not a test case for an object. Nor is it a test case for a method. It is a test case for a composite *behaviour* of a system, at some contextually appropriate level of detail. Brian Marick had some lovely stickers. One of them reads "An example would be handy about now." I note that your blog post *did* provide an example of testing Date. In which none of your test cases used 'subject'. I entirely agree with you that the three methods have good intention-revealing names. What we actually need is some examples where 'subject' pays off. On Mon, 20 Jan 2025 at 04:04, Koen De Hondt <koen(a)all-objects-all-the-time.st> wrote: > > Dear Pharo users and developers, > > In my series of blog posts on testing, I added a follow-up post about a dedicated name for the object under test in SUnit tests, the âsubject". > > Happy reading! > > Ciao, > Koen >

Jan. 23, 2025

Re: New VM Release v10.3.3

by stephane ducasse

Thanks a lot for you dedication and positive energy around this important artefact. S > On 16 Jan 2025, at 10:27, Guillermo Polito <guillermopolito(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Hi all, > > Weâve published a new VM release (v10.3.3) to be used with Pharo versions 10 through 13. > > 10.3.3 includes all changes in 10.3.2 (that was rolled back) plus several improvements. > > Highlights: > - improves the naming schema of built artifacts to differentiate releases from intermediate/nightly builds > - is built on the old file server (that we recovered!) to support compatibility with older GLibC versions > - builds and run properly on newer linux systems (we fixed a couple of linking and compilation issues with newer versions of gcc) > - many improvements in the perm space > > Please find in the wiki information about the build and versions > > https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/wiki > > Full release changes log > https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/releases/tag/v10.3.3 > > Finally, a big thanks to MaxLeske and Norbert for testing, and to everybody who contributed even in the previous conversations. > > Cheers, > G StÃ©phane Ducasse http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr 06 30 93 66 73 "If you knew today was your last day on earth, what would you do differently? ....ESPECIALLY if, by doing something different, today might not be your last day on earth.â Calvin & Hobbes

Jan. 20, 2025

"Subject in SUnit Tests" â New blog post on all: objects all: theTime

by Koen De Hondt

Dear Pharo users and developers, In my series of blog posts on testing, I added a follow-up post <https://all-objects-all-the-time.st/#/blog/posts/12> about a dedicated name for the object under test in SUnit tests, the âsubject". Happy reading! Ciao, Koen

Jan. 19, 2025

Pharo News of the Week 1 and 2 2025

by Marcus Denker

The First week everyone was on holidays, 2025 thus starts with week 2. - [Video] Talk from UK Smalltalk users group: Maximiliano Tabacman: Electronic Roleplaying Assistant - 27 March 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIoTkXNU-Sc - [Blog Post] Comparing SUnit with RSpec https://all-objects-all-the-time.st/#/blog/posts/11 # The week on the Pharo Issue Tracker # Pharo 12 - [Backport to P12] Improve word-by-word text navigation + tests #17285 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17285 - Backport fix-SDL-default-renderer-by-platform #17579 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17579 - use Spec v1.3.4 #17574 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17574 - Move compiled method installation code from compile to install step #17469 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17469 # Fixes - Fix word jumping p12 #17584 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17584 - 17576-Invalid-comment-is-breaking-CommentTests #17577 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17577 - New cursor jumping #17476 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17476 - Add CompiledBlock>>#browse and BlockClosure>>#browse #17335 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17335 # Features - Fix 13825. Create a new sorter for the completion engine . #17473 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17473 # VM - Build on old linux server #898 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/898 - DojoVM 2025-01-07 #896 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/896 - fix C warnings related to self assignments #894 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/894 - Forward port 10 to 12 #893 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/893 - Fix some Slang tests #891 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/891 - Add a dumb isNotNil implementation (the same as notNil) #890 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/890 - PIC Cleanup #889 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/889 - normalize C variables #875 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/875 - Lots of cleanups #874 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/874 - Removing duplicated code #857 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/857 - Fix warning absolute value #782 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/782 # Spec - changes on SPPresenter for resizing windows #1693 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1693 - use comprehensive option name #1691 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1691 - A test that checks whether the elements stay within the window's dimensions after resizing. #1688 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1688 - enhancement(tables): split formatting vs evaluation #1686 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1686 - default "ok" button in dialogs needs to be set to "ok" #1685 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1685 - SpPaginatorPageMorph and SpPaginatorSelectionMorph fixes for theme #1646 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1646 # Compiler - Forward port 17469 to P13: Move compiled method installation code from compile to install step #17587 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17587 - Fix string parse literals #17571 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17571 - Symbol should not depend on AST (Fix dependency test) #17580 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17580 - 17569 deprecate setparse options #17570 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17570 - Pharo13: Adding simple comments to RBClass methods #17575 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17575

Jan. 17, 2025

Pharo News of the Week 52/2024

by Marcus Denker

# Pharo News of the Week 52/2024 This is the changekog for the last week of 2024: # The week on the Pharo Issue Tracker # Fixes - Resolution for issue 17548 - Removed Network setting BlabEmail #17564 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17564 - Duplicate class refactoring #17558 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17558 - 17493-Dropping-a-fileout-raises-an-error #17533 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17533 - fix search of element in SpCollectionListModel. #1681 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1681 # Enhancements - enhance(morphic drop-handler): Better management of drop handler #17562 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17562 - Update FFI generation code to not generate multiple time the same methods #17559 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17559 # VM - Fix linking of UnixOSProcessPlugin - Remove dead code #888 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/888 - Fix failing tests #887 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/887 - fixing-classTag-tests #886 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/886 - Cleaning #881 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/881 - Druid fix vm #880 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/pull/880 # Iceberg - Branch: PrefilledCommit1852, Fixes # 1852 #1857 https://github.com/pharo-vcs/iceberg/pull/1857 # Cleanups - Cleanup scale factor methods #17555 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17555 - Remove users of asFileName #17561 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17561 - Remove unused code, user of asFileName #925 https://github.com/pharo-spec/NewTools/pull/925 - Fix SpDemoPresenter stupid uneecessary dependencies #1689 https://github.com/pharo-spec/Spec/pull/1689 - Better comment and removed unused instance variable #17560 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17560 # Compiler - Rename AST -> OC #17553 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17553 - P13: post AST to OC renaming #17566 https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo/pull/17566

Jan. 17, 2025

New VM Release v10.3.3

by Guillermo Polito

Hi all, Weâve published a new VM release (v10.3.3) to be used with Pharo versions 10 through 13. 10.3.3 includes all changes in 10.3.2 (that was rolled back) plus several improvements. Highlights: - improves the naming schema of built artifacts to differentiate releases from intermediate/nightly builds - is built on the old file server (that we recovered!) to support compatibility with older GLibC versions - builds and run properly on newer linux systems (we fixed a couple of linking and compilation issues with newer versions of gcc) - many improvements in the perm space Please find in the wiki information about the build and versions https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/wiki Full release changes log https://github.com/pharo-project/pharo-vm/releases/tag/v10.3.3 Finally, a big thanks to MaxLeske and Norbert for testing, and to everybody who contributed even in the previous conversations. Cheers, G

Jan. 16, 2025

All UKSTUG presentations are now available on YouTube

by UK Smalltalk

Hello, We have recently moved the recordings of the UKSTUG online presentations from Vimeo to YouTube. The recordings are now available at https://www.youtube.com/@UKSTUG . We are also looking for presenters for our 2025 online meetings. If you anything worth sharing, please let us know! Giovanni

Jan. 8, 2025

Re: [Pharo-dev] "Evaluation of SUnit" â New blog post on all: objects all: theTime

by stephane ducasse

Thanks for sharing it with us. It is great! > On 22 Nov 2024, at 23:10, Yanni Chiu <yannix7db(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > The blog post has "Nobody thought about automating that process. Until > Kent Beck did." That is not accurate, AFAIK. I believe it was in Kent > Beck's original EXtreme Programming book where he says the practices > were gathered from various Smalltalk shops he consulted at during the > Smalltalk heyday in the early 90's. > > For what it's worth, here's the history I know. Around 1993, in > Toronto, I was working at Footprint Software on VisualBanker (a suite > of code to support banking that 4 of the 5 major Canadian banks > bought). With my programming buddy (no "pair programming" at the time) > our task was to build a persistence framework (supporting Relational, > ObjectFiler, and in-memory). > > My task in a previous job was to convert (the AT&T Unix) C compiler to > support the "new" ANSI C standard. Thankfully, I was provided with a > test suite of C code, so that if it compiled without errors, then the > compiler was standard compliant. So, looking for something similar to > the ANSI C test suite I'd encountered, I set up test cases where all > methods starting with "test" would be run, and ran the tests against > all the backend data stores. The next day, my programming buddy > (George), who started at 6am (to have a faster commute) tells me this > test thing is great, and shows me the UI he built so we could just > push a button. We can check the same behaviour for all backends, and > we can coordinate our code changes through the tests (to mitigate our > different schedule). > > A year later, the company's product was deemed slow, so they > contracted Kent Beck to review our code base. He eventually comes > around to us. We showed him what we did with tests, and then he just > paused for about a minute staring out the window. We thought we were > doing something really bad. A few months later, George said to me "did > you see the SUnit thing posted on comp.lang.smalltalk". The basic > "test"-prefixed test cases were there, but with the addition of the > setUp and tearDown concept. > > Every once in a while I think to write this up. The "Nobody thought > about automating..." words pushed me over this time. Maybe 15 years > ago, I was able to find the original comp.lang.smalltalk SUnit > posting, but could not locate it this time when I wanted to verify the > dates. > > Yanni Chiu, > Smalltalk oldtimer, Toronto > > On Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 8:58â¯AM Koen De Hondt > <koen(a)all-objects-all-the-time.st> wrote: >> >> Dear Pharo users and developers, >> >> I wrote a blog post in which I evaluate SUnit. >> >> Enjoy reading it! >> >> Ciao, >> Koen >> StÃ©phane Ducasse http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr 06 30 93 66 73 "If you knew today was your last day on earth, what would you do differently? ....ESPECIALLY if, by doing something different, today might not be your last day on earth.â Calvin & Hobbes

Jan. 7, 2025