- Pharo-users - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-users] How do I save contents of Workspace into a collection?

by Marcus Denker

On Jan 12, 2013, at 1:19 AM, Ben Coman <btc(a)openInWorld.com> wrote: > Frank Church wrote: >> >> Hi Igor, >> >> I am new to Smalltalk but not new to programming and I am into my >> first 14 hrs into learning it with Pharo. >> > Good to have you on board Frank. It will be interesting to follow your experience in becoming proficient in Smalltalk & Pharo. I am just coming up on a year of using Smalltalk/Pharo. There are a lot of hidden depths and I learn a lot watching the mail list for answers to questions that I hadn't thought of asking yet. So fire away. Yes, and we really need to fix all the small hurdles people encounterâ¦ and improve the documentation for people not already knowing things.. Marcus

Jan. 12, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] How do I save contents of Workspace into a collection?

by Ben Coman

Frank Church wrote: > > Hi Igor, > > I am new to Smalltalk but not new to programming and I am into my > first 14 hrs into learning it with Pharo. > Good to have you on board Frank. It will be interesting to follow your experience in becoming proficient in Smalltalk & Pharo. I am just coming up on a year of using Smalltalk/Pharo. There are a lot of hidden depths and I learn a lot watching the mail list for answers to questions that I hadn't thought of asking yet. So fire away. I'll just mention a few things that I have learned that make it easier to plumb the system for examples. Also see http://marianopeck.wordpress.com/2012/05/19/pharo-tips-and-tricks/ > As I was trying to work out the right syntax it brought to mind the > thoughts of Brendan Eich, Gilad Bracha and Lars Bak who said the > familar syntax (Algol/C style) of languages like Javascript, Go and > Dart was chosen to make it easier for programmers familiar with C, > Pascal etcetera to starting using. them, rather than learn a whole new > paradigm, even at the cost of complicated parsing and language > structure. > The flipside is that it makes it easier to continue operating with your old paradigms in a hybrid manner, preventing you gaining the most 'stretch' most from a new paradigm. That is a very personal choice depending on what you want to gain from new learnings. However the main paradigm shift of Smalltalk is not its syntax but its 'live environment'. > If I was using Eclipse IDE for instance, at every step I could use > auto-completion and the documentation to decide what follows from > what, even in a domain I had no familiarity with, but Smalltalk > doesn't lend itself to that approach. > I was going to just ask for some examples of what you particularly liked in Eclipse. We can learn from other systems. However with a quick browse I found [1]. Do you have anything to add to that? [1] http://eclipse.org/recommenders/documentation/usr.html A few thoughts in response... _Intelligent Code Templates_ - "But code templates /really/ shine when developers have to use APIs they are not very familiar with. Then, code templates serve as additional documentation that quickly shows how an API can be used and save developers lot of time otherwise needed for reading API documentation. Eclipse maintains more than 70 of such Java code templates" Within Smalltalk, rather than 70 templates you have the whole system. If you are browsing a class and see a method which seems like what you want, click <Senders> to get an idea of how to use them. Another way to learn the system is to temporarily edit any method to insert a 'self haltOnce' then 'World-menu > System > Enable halt/inspect once' which will bring up a debugger where you can explore the call chain to see a live demonstration of how that method is used. The reason to use #haltOnce rather than #halt is that method might be used by the display system and you wold end up locking the image with cascading halts as the display loop runs. Using halos, you can <Duplicate> that menu item and leave it sitting on the background as a button for easy access. You can highlight any method and use <cmd-n> or <cmd-m> to get a list of senders & implementors of that method. I often find myself following several levels to understand a chain of calls. Learn the difference in using the <Into> <Over>& <Through> buttons when debugging (eg from the Workspace context menu) something like '#(1 2 3 4) do: [ :x | Transcript crShow: x].' For quite a while I had missed using <Through> properly which hamstrung me when tracing code and not wanting to trace the machinery of how #do: worked. _Intelligent Overrides Completion_ & _Subclassing Directives_ & _Self-call Directives_ These look interesting, in particular if they bought up examples from public repositories outside the image. > With spoken languages even without proper syntax or phrasing a person > who knows the language can deduce what you are trying to say but with > computers you either get it right or the computer stares back at you > blankly. > > As an experienced programmer I am trying to accomplish something > non-trivial as hard and as fast as I can with Squeak, Pharo and their > supporting libraries and ecosystem and the only way is to bombard the > mailing lists and forums. You could say I am trying to understand how > the language constructs can support my intentions as fast as I can. > > With respect to the above I can truthfully say that at this juncture I > don't know what it all means, from the theoretical view point, nor > from the practical perspective of what I am trying to accomplish, > which is why the questions are flying in so thick and fast. > > > Last of all - teachers please, I don't want to go to Smalltalk > kindergarten. I have done too much programming in my life to be put in > kindergarten when I start Smalltalk. > The problem here is although one can learn from reading examples, it > can be hard to understand the language constructs unless they are > derived from one's own use cases, and this is why my questions have > been coming in so thick and fast. > > > Even in light of that wanting to use your own use cases, there is one example I would recommend [2] - since it is the best demonstration I've seen of the paradigm shift of programming in Squeak/Pharo's live environment. It is not entirely trivial - it took me a couple of days to get through it - but the main reason I recommend it is that it is more than a code example. It is a demonstration the power of the system to refactor as the design evolves from concept to deployment. The author exposes errors in design and how best to use the debugger. Kind of a "this is how things are done in Smalltalk". YMMV but I personally found it useful to help me change my approach from previous programming languages. It is actually one of the main things that mad me focus more on Smalltalk. You would need to temporarily regress a few years to use Squeak 3.9 to match the article, then come back to use the latest and greatest in current Pharo. [2] http://squeak.preeminent.org/tut2007/html/index.html cheers -ben

Jan. 12, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] SmalltalkHub Down

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

I saw them and this is slicker and faster than before!!!! Stef On Jan 11, 2013, at 4:15 PM, Bernat Romagosa wrote: > Wow, right on then! > > I'll commit locally and wait eagerly for these changes ;) > > Thanks for the info, cheers! > > Bernat. > > > 2013/1/11 Camillo Bruni <camillobruni(a)gmail.com> > It is down for maintenance to come back shinier than ever. > Uptime is scheduled for the next hours. > > On 2013-01-11, at 16:10, Bernat Romagosa <tibabenfortlapalanca(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > SmalltalkHub looks down, can anyone take a look at it, please? > > > > Thanks! > > > > Bernat. > > > > -- > > Bernat Romagosa. > > > > > > -- > Bernat Romagosa.

Jan. 11, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] How do I save contents of Workspace into a collection?

by StÃ©phane Ducasse

> > > As an experienced programmer I am trying to accomplish something > non-trivial as hard and as fast as I can with Squeak, Pharo and their > supporting libraries and ecosystem and the only way is to bombard the > mailing lists and forums. You could say I am trying to understand how > the language constructs can support my intentions as fast as I can. sure there is no problem. Now understanding the culture is important. Because if writing scripts would be so important for us we would have something else than a workspace. Usually I turned into a method a script **AS FAST AS** I can. Because I can reuse it. > For instance yesterday I was thinking as to why the types/classes of > the instance variables was not specified when I defined a class, in > the way I would with Object Pascal and Java classes or record types, > then it dawned on me that perhaps their getters and setters, together > with other methods defined on them would define what in other > languages would be their type. Thus it results in better understanding > of the notion that in Smalltalk everything is an object and the > methods it supports more or less defines its "type" > > Another thing - the topic of this thread is not so much concerned > with Workspaces. I am more interested in scanning the workspace for > any control capable of text editing and extracting the text from it. > Workspaces are the first instance one comes across, and shift-clicking > the editing area resulted in a TextMorphForEditView. So to do what I > want I have to create a new kind of editing widget with > TextMorphForEditView embedded it in it, or find an existing one and > use/learn from/adapt it. In fact it is linked to SO 5592521 rigth now we are not happy with the state of the texteditor in Pharo We are starting to redesign it from scratch. > > Last of all - teachers please, I don't want to go to Smalltalk > kindergarten. I have done too much programming in my life to be put in > kindergarten when I start Smalltalk. > The problem here is although one can learn from reading examples, it > can be hard to understand the language constructs unless they are > derived from one's own use cases, and this is why my questions have > been coming in so thick and fast. No problem with questions. About the syntax have a look at one of the chapter of Pharo by example. > PS. The Stack Overflow ranking of a lot of expert Smalltalkers has an > inverse relationship to their expertise, a notable exception being > Frank Shearer (related to the footballer?) ;-) Indeed we are problem to get unstuck from our mailing-list :) > -- > Frank Church > > ======================= > http://devblog.brahmancreations.com >

Jan. 11, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] SmalltalkHub Down

by Bernat Romagosa

Wow, right on then! I'll commit locally and wait eagerly for these changes ;) Thanks for the info, cheers! Bernat. 2013/1/11 Camillo Bruni <camillobruni(a)gmail.com> > It is down for maintenance to come back shinier than ever. > Uptime is scheduled for the next hours. > > On 2013-01-11, at 16:10, Bernat Romagosa <tibabenfortlapalanca(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > > > SmalltalkHub looks down, can anyone take a look at it, please? > > > > Thanks! > > > > Bernat. > > > > -- > > Bernat Romagosa. > > > -- Bernat Romagosa.

Jan. 11, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] SmalltalkHub Down

by Camillo Bruni

It is down for maintenance to come back shinier than ever. Uptime is scheduled for the next hours. On 2013-01-11, at 16:10, Bernat Romagosa <tibabenfortlapalanca(a)gmail.com> wrote: > SmalltalkHub looks down, can anyone take a look at it, please? > > Thanks! > > Bernat. > > -- > Bernat Romagosa.

Jan. 11, 2013

SmalltalkHub Down

by Bernat Romagosa

SmalltalkHub looks down, can anyone take a look at it, please? Thanks! Bernat. -- Bernat Romagosa.

Jan. 11, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] Rendering text to bitmap buffer then paintImage to a canvas

by Ben Coman

Thanks Igor. That was exactly what I was looking for. Igor Stasenko wrote: > On 10 January 2013 14:42, Ben Coman <btc(a)openinworld.com> wrote: > >> I need to improve the performance of a lot of text that drawn on screen >> while the screen is being dragged around and would like to experiment with >> rendering the text to a bitmap buffer then painting that onto a canvas. How >> might that be achieved? And from Workspace can I test this? I have been >> searching for a couple of hours already so thought I'd just ask. >> >> > > easy. > > form := Form extent: 100@100 depth: 32. > > canvas := form getCanvas. > canvas drawString... whatever. > > and then: > > displayCanvas drawImage: form. > > > > >> cheers -ben >> >> > > > >

Jan. 11, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] [squeak-dev] How can the main window title in Squeak and Pharo be set?

by Frank Church

On 10 January 2013 18:56, Bert Freudenberg <bert(a)freudenbergs.de> wrote: > On 10.01.2013, at 10:39, Nicolas Cellier <nicolas.cellier.aka.nice(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >> Bert, >> you can add the answer on SO too :) >> >> Nicolas > > Ok. Would be helpful if people linked to the Stack Overflow question if they ask by email, too. > > - Bert - > > I have tried them both in Squeak 4.3 but they don't work. DisplayScreen hostWindowTitle: 'My Title'. -> hostWindowTitle Unknown selector error. HostWindowProxy basicNew primitiveWindowTitle: 1 string: 'My Title' squeakToUtf8 -> results in Unknown variable HostWindowProxy In Pharo: DisplayScreen hostWindowTitle: 'My Title'. -> no error message but no effect. HostWindowProxy basicNew primitiveWindowTitle: 1 string: 'My Title' squeakToUtf8 -> MNU: ByteString >> squeakToUtf8 When I remove the squeakToUtf8 at the end - ie: HostWindowProxy basicNew primitiveWindowTitle: 1 string: 'My Title' -> Error: Unable to set title of Host Window In fact that is the actual code in primitiveWindowTitle: id string: titleString "Set the label of the title bar of the window" <primitive: 'primitiveHostWindowTitle' module: 'HostWindowPlugin'> ^self error: 'Unable to set title of Host Window' HostWindowProxy basicNew primitiveWindowTitle: 1 string: 'My Title' -- Frank Church ======================= http://devblog.brahmancreations.com

Jan. 11, 2013

Re: [Pharo-users] How do I save contents of Workspace into a collection?

by Frank Church

> PS. The Stack Overflow ranking of a lot of expert Smalltalkers has an > inverse relationship to their expertise, a notable exception being > Frank Shearer (related to the footballer?) ;-) @Frank, sorry about the mix up, yours has an 'a' not an 'e' at the end. I think it is nice to be associated with a famous footballer though. -- Frank Church ======================= http://devblog.brahmancreations.com

Jan. 11, 2013