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Re: [Pharo-users] Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?

by Yanni Chiu

On 21/03/13 10:09 PM, Victor Stan wrote: > > Traditionally and culturally, at first glance, forgive me if I'm > stereotyping, but the smalltalk world seems to be heavily biased towards > academic and large proprietary enterprise tooling and development > environments. I think this is a reason (among others, from what I've > read around) why ST hasn't picked up steam as the WWW grew up, the > developers and tools were simply not geared toward such an environment. The "why did Smalltalk not take off" debate is a regular occurrence on Smalltalk discussion forums. There used to be Smalltalk implementations that targeted smaller companies. Digitalk Smalltalk was one of these. Unfortunately, at the critical WWW breakout moment, Digitalk was bought by ParcPlace, and eventually killed. Perhaps an independent Digitalk could have adapted as you would have expected. > However, while I'm guessing that most developers in ST are still heavily > oriented toward enterprise platforms, we can all benefit by bringing > aboard more developers and creating a large market and demand for ST > developers, and I'm going to go on a limb here and say that that's not > going to happen until we can integrate with the tools and culture of > contemporary web development. Anyone have opinions on this? IMHO, many in the community agree with your points, but the community is just not big enough at this point to address it all, as quickly as everyone would like (i.e. already done). > I hope I can get better at ST and try to contribute myself to some > things that interest me more... > > Cheers, > > > Victor Stan > > Schedule me: > http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor Since you're in Toronto, have you ever come to the Toronto Smalltalk User Group (http://smalltalk.toronto.on.ca) meetings? We've been meeting for 20 or more years. You just missed the MagLev talk. The July Patio Night would be a good time to get filled in by old-time TO-Smalltalkers.

March 22, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of Git?

by Victor Stan

Thank you all for your responses, I appreciate all the good feedback around this topic. Rather than try to address individual replies in their respective email responses, I will summary what I learned and what my thoughts are. The trend now is to use http://smalltalkhub.com/ which is a bit like a combination of GitHub (source control) and https://rubygems.org/ (library repository). There are historical precedents for why things are the way they are now: Monticello was really good when it came out and still a fairly useful tool, the nature of Smalltalk images is that all the tools tend to be inside of the image and thus there is little incentive to focus on external tools. I think the nature of the web and the power of contemporary browsers has given rise to quite advanced web applications which have been able to surpass certain tools inside of the traditional Smalltalk image (hence the topic: Github). I'm not going to list its features, anyone that isn't familiar can very easily become familiar with what it can do by trying it out, its free. There's been some confusion, probably because of my forming of the question with poor mapping from the tools that I know to what Pharo/Smalltalk has to offer... so really, there is the question of source control and sharing code between teams and developers and library hosting. Online services that leverage source control and offer tools like easy online browsing of repositories/source code as well as the ability for developers to do pull requests and code review, not to mention forking repositories and reviving dead code, documenting and bug tracking. Besides managing source code, there is the concept of libraries, which overlaps greatly with source code management, but such repositories need not have all the tools previously listed, but do need to have a way to allow developers to quickly find and tap into existing code libraries; to easily create, share and download these libraries is central such a service. In this regard I think Monticello and http://www.squeaksource.com/are the tools in Smalltalk world that map the most to that concept ( https://rubygems.org/)? (correct me if I'm wrong). I understand the image/smalltalk kernel as a self sufficient enclosed world is why live objects are possible, and that's the beauty of Smalltalk. I see there is effort to build towards a more open (in the sense of the world wide web) set of tools to manage code and libraries. I still don't understand why smalltalkhub.com is trying to be both a library and source code control tool at the same time. I think leveraging tools currently available, and which have a large user-base is better for allowing new users who come from another environment -- pretty much everyone that deals with open source web and mobile application development knows how to use GitHub. But I will stick around and see how those that know more about the Smalltalk world make their decisions. I want to see a growing and thriving ST community! Traditionally and culturally, at first glance, forgive me if I'm stereotyping, but the smalltalk world seems to be heavily biased towards academic and large proprietary enterprise tooling and development environments. I think this is a reason (among others, from what I've read around) why ST hasn't picked up steam as the WWW grew up, the developers and tools were simply not geared toward such an environment. However, while I'm guessing that most developers in ST are still heavily oriented toward enterprise platforms, we can all benefit by bringing aboard more developers and creating a large market and demand for ST developers, and I'm going to go on a limb here and say that that's not going to happen until we can integrate with the tools and culture of contemporary web development. Anyone have opinions on this? Perhaps the current tools that I've described aren't the best fit for Smalltalk, and perhaps I'm still currently limited because of my personal development culture 'up-bringing'. I would love to get to know what a more idiomatic toolset can do, as Pharo and the smalltalk environment seems to be quite powerful as is and has been for a long time, and still is ahead of many current and more popular languages and tools. There are other topics I would like to explore in more detail sometime soon: - keeping up to date documentation - creating (current) tutorials for beginners to Smalltalk - minimizing fragmentation and across Smalltalk tools & library & interpreters - evaluating tools for development community discussions that are more accessible and open to newcomers / a larger audience I hope I can get better at ST and try to contribute myself to some things that interest me more... Cheers, Victor Stan Schedule me: http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor Add me to your address book - it's easy! http://contactmonkey.com/victor On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 4:32 PM, stephane ducasse <stephane.ducasse(a)free.fr>wrote: > thanks Paul > :) > we are making progress > > > Rails had 468 committers for its 3.2.0 release [1]. Pharo probably had > > less than a tenth of that between 1.4 and 2.0 and Seaside 3.0 maybe a > > fifth of Pharo. As Stuart mentioned there is work being done. > > Smalltalk is the 48th most popular language on github[2] and so there > > are projects and tooling for interacting with it. On the mailing list > > archive across all Smalltalk public mailing lists there are ~2200 posts > > about github[3] discussing various reasons why things are or are not > > happening. > > > > Its not that there's not effort, or it doesn't exist, or isn't > > considered. Its that its either not there yet, or not going to get > > there because a better option will come up or along that people in the > > more-limited-in-number-of-people-than-you're-used-to open source > > Smalltalk community want to work on more than github integration [4]. > > > > > > > > > > Which features of git are you missing? Which of github? > > > > > > > > > > [1] http://contributors.rubyonrails.org/releases > > [2] https://github.com/languages/Smalltalk > > [3] > > > http://forum.world.st/template/NamlServlet.jtp?macro=search_page&node=12947… > > [4] http://www.smalltalkhub.com > > > > On 03/19/2013 06:58 PM, Victor Stan wrote: > >> Why are SmallTalk projects/source code hosted on SS3 Gemstone instead of > >> Git/GitHub? > >> > >> I'm coming to SmallTalk from the world of web development with open > >> source software, primarily Rails, and I'm very familiar with the amazing > >> social network/source code repository that is GitHub. It is truly an > >> industry defining entity, so many open source projects have been able to > >> harness the ease of use, features and community around Git and GitHub. > >> > >> At the moment, as I'm trying to learn more about SmallTalk and Pharo > >> especially, (my primary interest in Pharo is to use it as a web > >> development platform), I am a bit shocked, if I may be frank, at the > >> tooling used for source code and open source project management. I see > >> that the popular trend now is to move to SS3/Gemstone, and I appreciate > >> anyone that helps open source development/projects, but I can't see how > >> they can even come close to the functionality of GitHub for source code > >> hosting and OS project management, so I pose the question: is there an > >> effort, why or why not, to start integrating with GitHub and Git for > >> source code management? > >> > >> I know that historical precent and the tools built into Pharo/SmallTalk > >> images, like Monticello are predecessors to GUI source control, but > >> given the leaps that Git has managed to take, in distributed source code > >> management, how does the existing SmallTalk community feel about it's > >> current tooling in this regard? > >> > >> Thanks, > >> > >> Victor Stan > >> > >> Schedule me: > >> http://quicklyschedule.quicklyschedule.me/victor > >> > >> Add me to your address book - it's easy! > >> http://contactmonkey.com/victor > >> > > > > > > >

March 22, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] ZnUrl: Add multiple segment string

by Ben Coman

Sean P. DeNigris wrote: > Sven Van Caekenberghe-2 wrote > >> Yes, I think AbstractFileReference>>#/ could probably be extended in a >> similar way, but I am no FileSystem expert... >> > > ref1 := '/' asFileReference / 'Users' / 'me'. > gives a FileReference with Path / 'Users' / 'me' > > ref2 := '/' asFileReference / 'Users/me'. > gives a FileReference with Path / 'Users/me' > > I use the second version all the time, and even though the internal path > representation is different, it still "works" e.g. ref1 exists = ref2 exists > > What about iterating through the parts of a path? Does the following produce output spread over lines the same way? (I haven't used FileSystem yet so treat this as pseudo-code...). ref1 parts do: [ :pathPath | Transcript crShow: pathPart ] Just wild speculation.... but it might be nice if the internal representation of ref2 splits up on the separator. Haven't thought about what might be the downside. cheers -ben > > ----- > Cheers, > Sean > -- > View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/ZnUrl-Add-multiple-segment-string-tp4672728p4677657.h… > Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > > >

March 22, 2013

Tiling Window Manager port to Pharo 2.0

by laurent laffont

Hi, Tiling Window Manager is ported to Pharo 2.0. Configuration in MetaRepoForPharo20. Now hosted on SmalltalkHub http://smalltalkhub.com/#!/~LaurentLaffont/TilingWindowManager Add the ability to cycle clockwise / counter clockwise among visible windows using Cmd+R,> and Cmd+R,< Thanks for Pharo 2.0, it feels really better. Laurent Laffont

March 21, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] [Pharo-project] [squeak-dev] GSoC13: Google Summer of Code started, your ideas please!

by Mariano Martinez Peck

Hola tocayo! Maybe you can find this interesting: http://www.squeaksource.com/Jabber/ Best, On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 2:41 PM, Mariano Vicente <m.vicent(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > âHi, my name is Mariano,i'm a student at University of Quilmes. i have a > experience in other programing languages like Scala, or Objective-c, and i > like to participate in a real Smaltalk project. My background in this > tecnology, is a little small, i never make a real project (I do in other > tecnlogies) and i think the summer of code is a great oportunity for learn > and practice. > > My ideas are: > > > Level: intermediate > Possible mentor: guillermo polito > Possible second mentor: (?) > Description: jabber client / server to communicate smaltalk with this > common protocol. > Technical Details: Create a jabber client api, to provide the capacity to > connect with accouts like google talk, or facebook chat. > Create a jabber api server, with the capacity of accept connection of > diferent jabber clients. > Benefits to the Student: > - Learn > ââ > ââ > â and understand â > architecture > ââ > server/client > - Learn about the protocol jabber. > > â > â > - Use a highly reflective dynamic languageâ > > > Benefits to the Community: > - Server and client for jabber protocol > - Posible implementations for chatbots, chatclients, chatservers > â > > And : > > âLevel: intermediate > Possible mentor: Guillermo Polito > Possible second mentor: (?) > Description: Animation Library based on Athens > Technical Details: Animation Library, to make visual animation objects in > the screen, such as move, bounce , etc. > Benefits to the Student: > - Learn the basics of animations and moving objects. > - Learn about manage of graphics > - Understand the concepts of movement functions > > Benefits to the Community: > - Get a library to make custom animations with the posibility of add new > ones. > > > > â > > > âRegards, > Mariano > > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 7:14 PM, Guillermo Polito < > guillermopolito(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> And another one: >> >> Level: intermediate >> Possible mentor: Santiago Bragagnolo >> Possible second mentor: Guillermo Polito >> >> Description: Gamification is becoming more and more popular in a lot of >> applications. What about gamify the pharo development process? You get >> points by adding comments, fixing bugs or answering questions. You can be a >> comment healer, a bug slayer, a Zinc magician. The intend of this project >> is to build an application that integrates with the Pharo development >> process tools (issue tracker, smalltalkhub, stack overflow) and provides a >> gamified experience, so we get more and more motivated to code. >> >> Technical Details: This project implies the creation of an application >> which communicates with different applications APIs and perform some >> analysis on them such as running source code Lint rules. Additionally, this >> application should have a web frontend. >> >> >> Benefits to the Student >> - Use a highly reflective dynamic language >> - Learn to develop a complex application architecture with several >> communicating components >> - Learn about ramification concepts >> - Learn about an open source project development and integration >> process, such as Pharo >> - Learn web application development techniques >> >> Benefits to the Community >> - have a platform to organize activities and events around the Pharo >> development >> - be more motivated to participate into the development for rewards >> such as experience, badges and abilities >> >> >> On Wed, Mar 13, 2013 at 4:40 PM, Guillermo Polito < >> guillermopolito(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Hi Janko! >>> >>> We have this: >>> >>> Level: intermediate >>> Possible mentor: Guillermo Polito >>> >>> Possible second mentor: Esteban Lorenzano >>> >>> Description: DBXTalk database driver nowadays uses a native library >>> called OpenDBX. This library stands as an adaptor between different >>> database drivers, implemented in C. This native library supposes many >>> problems: >>> - it should be normally compiled for each different platform (Windows, >>> *nix, macosx) and database vendor >>> - each of its bugs should be fixed in a C source code base >>> - OpenDBX do not expose the particular behavior of each database >>> vendor, but their common denominator >>> - difficulty for distribution, and problems to locate libraries. >>> This project proposes to use NativeBoost bindings to remove the >>> necessity of the native openDBX library, simplifying the deployment of >>> applications using relational databases, and moving all the code base to >>> Smalltalk. >>> >>> Technical Details: This project supposes the replacement of openDBX >>> old FFI bindings by direct nativeBoost bindings to the database drivers. >>> The new drivers should be completely written in Smalltalk, and take care of >>> platform and library resolution in the image side. These drivers should be >>> polymorphic while also enabling the access to specific API provided by >>> database vendors. >>> >>> Benefits to the Student >>> - Use a highly reflective dynamic language >>> - Learn the basics of foreign function interface (and its exponent >>> NativeBoost) >>> - Learn how to manage external resources and platform specific native >>> code >>> - Put into usage its object design skills to transform a structured >>> designed library into an object oriented one >>> >>> Benefits to the Community >>> - A more malleable and full smalltalk implementation of relational >>> database drivers >>> - Easier deploy for applications using relational databases >>> - Database divers exposing their particular apis, providing access to >>> features not available before >>> >>> Guille >>> >>> On Sat, Mar 9, 2013 at 2:16 PM, Janko MivÅ¡ek <janko.mivsek(a)eranova.si>wrote: >>> >>>> Hi Stef, >>>> >>>> Post on the mailing list for each project idea by following this >>>> template: >>>> >>>> Level: (beginner, intermediate, advanced) >>>> >>>> Possible mentor: >>>> >>>> Possible second mentor: >>>> >>>> Description >>>> >>>> Technical Details >>>> >>>> Benefits to the Student >>>> >>>> Benefits to the Community >>>> >>>> Best regards >>>> Janko >>>> >>>> Dne 09. 03. 2013 13:46, piÅ¡e stephane ducasse: >>>> > Hi janko >>>> > >>>> > How do you want to proceed for the topics? >>>> > I have a list of topics now where do we write them. >>>> > >>>> > - tool support rewrite rules >>>> > - new generation debugger >>>> > - new change model and session manager (with martin dias) >>>> > - improving roassal (with alexandre bergel et vanessa pena) >>>> > - improving eyesee (with alexandre bergel et vanessa pena) >>>> > - support touch event >>>> > - UIPainter (with esteban lorenzano) >>>> > - New widgets >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > Stef >>>> > >>>> > >>>> >> Dear Smalltalkers, >>>> >> >>>> >> Time for your cool project ideas on this year Smalltalk GSoC! >>>> >> >>>> >> For now just express any idea you have here on the mailing list. >>>> Later >>>> >> we will together develop it to be in complete format together with >>>> two >>>> >> mentors needed. Deadline is end of Mart, so we have three weeks of >>>> time. >>>> >> To see how fully developed ideas look like please look at 2012 ones >>>> at: >>>> >> http://gsoc2012.esug.org/ideas. >>>> >> >>>> >> Note also that students yourselves can propose a GSoC project. So if >>>> you >>>> >> like to be a student on this year GSoC and have a nice idea, don't be >>>> >> shy and propose it here! The community will listen you and guide to >>>> the >>>> >> really nicely proposed project. Last year 6 student proposed projects >>>> >> were accepted and finished successfully! >>>> >> >>>> >> For the community, start looking around for students. Think about >>>> how to >>>> >> approach the universities near by you, do you know who to contact >>>> >> there, etc. >>>> >> >>>> >> We are namely preparing an application to this year Smalltalk Google >>>> >> Summer of Code under ESUG umbrella, as last year. If accepted, Google >>>> >> will pay few stipendiums to students on our Smalltalk projects. >>>> >> >>>> >> More on our special Smalltalk GSoC 2013 website: >>>> >> >>>> >> http://gsoc2013.esug.org >>>> >> >>>> >> I'm specially inviting mentors of all past GSoCs to rejoin the >>>> mentors >>>> >> mailing list, where we discuss all details about this year GSoC: >>>> >> >>>> >> http://groups.google.com/group/smalltalk-gsoc-mentors >>>> >> >>>> >> While students interested on GSoC please join a special Smalltalk >>>> GSoC >>>> >> mailing list for you: >>>> >> >>>> >> http://groups.google.com/group/smalltalk-gsoc-students >>>> >> >>>> >> Best regards >>>> >> Janko >>>> >> >>>> >> >>>> >> -- >>>> >> Janko MivÅ¡ek >>>> >> Aida/Web >>>> >> Smalltalk Web Application Server >>>> >> http://www.aidaweb.si >>>> >> >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Janko MivÅ¡ek >>>> Aida/Web >>>> Smalltalk Web Application Server >>>> http://www.aidaweb.si >>>> >>>> >>> >> > -- Mariano http://marianopeck.wordpress.com

March 21, 2013

Pharo conf Bern April - registration? time schedule?

by Sabine KnÃ¶fel

Hi, how do I register for the conf on 2-4.April in Berne? It there a time schedule? I am looking forward to the conf. Sabine

March 21, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] NeoJSON Mappings

by Esteban A. Maringolo

Hi Sven, 2013/3/18 Sven Van Caekenberghe-2 [via Smalltalk] > There is however a problem: the basic JSON spec is deliberately limited > and vague about certain aspects, and even non existing for other aspects > such as typing, references or cycles. There exist numerous ways to add those > to JSON, some very complicated ones, often coming from statically typed > languages. Many of those kill the human readability/writability of JSON. The > problem of how to encode a type or class in JSON across languages is > actually unsolved. That is why I decided not to implement any support for > that. > With NeoJSON mappings your are supposed to know upfront what types your > JSON represents/contains. This works fine in many cases but certainly not > all. In this case I know it. And I Just need the writter and not the reader, altough it might be useful in the future. > Circular references will always be a problem. > Structure sharing is extra complicated, it requires both reader and writer > support with an objet table. Yes, this happens with any serializer without global state or object table :) > STON, which is very similar but incompatible with JSON, has support for > all these aspects, right out of the box, no mapping required. If you do not > have to interact with foreign systems, that is an option. In this case JSON is mandatory. The consumer of the data is a mobile device. The other alternative is, god forbid, XML, which isn't friendly in terms of bandwidth. > Support for one of the many semantics built on top of JSON will have to be > built by hand. Hopefully the mapping layer can help there. But like you > said: you'll have to play with custom mappings. The mapping system is pretty > simple to understand. Yes, but sometimes I feel the need to be able to map instVars/accesors to encoder/decoders without having to use an schema (defined by a symbol). I haven't found the case where it is not an extra step. > PS: I also have to confess that although I am using NeoJSON in various > important projects myself, we usually stick with Dictionaries/Collections > without doing any mapping. Only in very specific cases do we actually > convert to specific Smalltalk objects. Same happens here so far, I produce JSON, and get JSON back, but then I manually pick the JSON values (deserialized as Dictionaries/Arrays) and assign them to my objects. I don't know what the guys from SmalltalkHub are using to serialize/deserialize JSON. Thanks for your support. I'll keep with using custom mappings for almost everything that references an object which isn't "simple" (string, dates, numbers, etc.). Best regards, -- Esteban. -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/NeoJSON-Mappings-tp4677077p4677681.html Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

March 21, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] How can my Morph reflect changes in the object it displays?

by phil＠highoctane.be

Currently doing some stuff with step and stepTime. Are these things supported in some way in Spec? This is an open question :-) Phil 2013/3/21 Benjamin <benjamin.vanryseghem.pharo(a)gmail.com>: > Yes you can :) > (thanks to value holders ^^) > > Ben > > On Mar 21, 2013, at 1:58 PM, MartinW <wm(a)fastmail.fm> wrote: > > Benjamin Van Ryseghem-2 wrote > > The problem is mutable objects, what can you do then â¦ > For Spec I introduced value holders :) > > > I was already wondering what ValueHolders were abould :) > I am looking forward to the Spec Tutorial Video from the Pharo Conference. > > Can i already do this with Spec: > Display a Slider and a Textfield for a numerical value and when i change the > value via the slider the Textfiled will update and vice versa? > > > > > -- > View this message in context: > http://forum.world.st/How-can-my-Morph-reflect-changes-in-the-object-it-dis… > Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. > >

March 21, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] How can my Morph reflect changes in the object it displays?

by Benjamin

Yes you can :) (thanks to value holders ^^) Ben On Mar 21, 2013, at 1:58 PM, MartinW <wm(a)fastmail.fm> wrote: > Benjamin Van Ryseghem-2 wrote >> The problem is mutable objects, what can you do then â¦ >> For Spec I introduced value holders :) > > I was already wondering what ValueHolders were abould :) > I am looking forward to the Spec Tutorial Video from the Pharo Conference. > > Can i already do this with Spec: > Display a Slider and a Textfield for a numerical value and when i change the > value via the slider the Textfiled will update and vice versa? > > > > > -- > View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/How-can-my-Morph-reflect-changes-in-the-object-it-dis… > Sent from the Pharo Smalltalk Users mailing list archive at Nabble.com. >

March 21, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] How can my Morph reflect changes in the object it displays?

by Stephan Eggermont

>I have not looked at Glamour yet - and i am a bit reluctant to add an extra >layer, but i will give it a try. Why? If it fits your problem space, it avoids a lot of boilerplate. http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/building-a-simple-code-browser/ http://www.themoosebook.org/book/internals/glamour http://www.humane-assessment.com/blog/building-browsers-with-glamour-smallt… Stephan

March 21, 2013