- Pharo-users - lists.pharo.org

Re: [Pharo-users] I feel like an overwhelmed maintenance programmer - how to get some toeholds?

by Sven Van Caekenberghe

Hilaire, I hope you are well. I consider you a full member of the Pharo community, I have seen you interacting on the mailing lists for many years and I appreciate your work a lot, that is why I was surprised you would not know that there are newer, pharo specific versions of the very old book you mentioned, the Pharo By Example book is itself many years old already. Please understand, many people ask for all kinds of documentation, authors put a lot of work in writing or updating documentation, and then it seems to go unnoticed, which is very frustrating. Sven > On 18 Dec 2019, at 19:32, Hilaire <hilaire(a)drgeo.eu> wrote: > > Keep cool and relax, no need to be harsh. Just mention the additional > resources I will happily learn from, I did not see your previous posts. > > I mentioned resources I was happy to use when learning Smalltalk, I am > only distantly following what is going on with Pharo. Last time I code > some bits of Pharo was about 2-3 months ago. Serious Smalltalk code was > likely about 12 months ago. I am recovering from a surgery where a big > part of my large bowel was removed and hoping for no relapse. So excuse > me if I am not up to the standard, I am not even a professional > programmer. My daily job is teaching to teenagers and staying afloat. > > Thanks > > Hilaire > > Le 18/12/2019 Ã 19:00, Sven Van Caekenberghe a Ã©crit : >> Come on, there is >> >> http://books.pharo.org/updated-pharo-by-example/ >> >> which is the same book, but for Pharo, and updated to 5.0 >> >> And >> >> http://books.pharo.org/booklet-WithStyle/ >> >> being written. >> >> Let's appreciate all the effort done by the authors to do the hard work of keeping all this up to date. >> > -- > Dr. Geo > http://drgeo.eu > > >

Dec. 18, 2019

Re: [Pharo-users] I feel like an overwhelmed maintenance programmer - how to get some toeholds?

by Hilaire

Keep cool and relax, no need to be harsh.Â Just mention the additional resources I will happily learn from, I did not see your previous posts. I mentioned resources I was happy to use when learning Smalltalk, I am only distantly following what is going on with Pharo. Last time I code some bits of Pharo was about 2-3 months ago. Serious Smalltalk code was likely about 12 months ago. I am recovering from a surgery where a big part of my large bowel was removed and hoping for no relapse. So excuse me if I am not up to the standard, I am not even a professional programmer. My daily job is teaching to teenagers and staying afloat. Thanks Hilaire Le 18/12/2019 Ã 19:00, Sven Van Caekenberghe a Ã©critÂ : > Come on, there is > > http://books.pharo.org/updated-pharo-by-example/ > > which is the same book, but for Pharo, and updated to 5.0 > > And > > http://books.pharo.org/booklet-WithStyle/ > > being written. > > Let's appreciate all the effort done by the authors to do the hard work of keeping all this up to date. > -- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu

Dec. 18, 2019

Re: [Pharo-users] I feel like an overwhelmed maintenance programmer - how to get some toeholds?

by Sven Van Caekenberghe

Come on, there is http://books.pharo.org/updated-pharo-by-example/ which is the same book, but for Pharo, and updated to 5.0 And http://books.pharo.org/booklet-WithStyle/ being written. Let's appreciate all the effort done by the authors to do the hard work of keeping all this up to date. > On 18 Dec 2019, at 18:30, Hilaire <hilaire(a)drgeo.eu> wrote: > > Hi Steve, > > Did you give a look at the "Smalltalk by Example" and "Smalltalk with > style" ? There are good starters to get an overall idea of the basic > objects and how is written Smalltalk code. It could help to jump in > Pharo then. > > There are very easy reading, the advanced parts may not apply to Pharo > though, but you can then jump to specific Pharo books. > > http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks.html > > Hilaire > > > > Le 18/12/2019 Ã 09:11, Steve Davies a Ã©crit : >> I'm a career programmer but I'm nearly 60 and sadly I can't absorb >> information like I used to be able to, and I'm just finding Pharo so >> overwhelming - I feel like a maintenance programmer trying to find a >> way into a million lines of code when you don't understand the >> principles of organisation and the conventions of the developers. >> >> Is there no way to have some sort of "progressive revelation" of the >> insides of Pharo? Just documentation on most classes, examples of how >> to use the class, without the implementation being exposed initially? > > -- > Dr. Geo > http://drgeo.eu > > >

Dec. 18, 2019

Re: [Pharo-users] I feel like an overwhelmed maintenance programmer - how to get some toeholds?

by Hilaire

Hi Steve, Did you give a look at the "Smalltalk by Example" and "Smalltalk with style" ? There are good starters to get an overall idea of the basic objects and how is written Smalltalk code. It could help to jump in Pharo then. There are very easy reading, the advanced parts may not apply to Pharo though, but you can then jump to specific Pharo books. http://stephane.ducasse.free.fr/FreeBooks.html Hilaire Le 18/12/2019 Ã 09:11, Steve Davies a Ã©critÂ : > I'm a career programmer but I'm nearly 60 and sadly I can't absorb > information like I used to be able to, and I'm just finding Pharo so > overwhelming - I feel like a maintenanceÂ programmer trying to find a > way into a million lines of code when you don't understand the > principles of organisation and the conventions of the developers. > > Is there no way to have some sort of "progressive revelation" of the > insides of Pharo?Â Just documentation on most classes, examples of how > to use the class, without the implementation being exposed initially? -- Dr. Geo http://drgeo.eu

Dec. 18, 2019

Re: [Pharo-users] I feel like an overwhelmed maintenance programmer - how to get some toeholds?

by Ben Coman

On Wed, 18 Dec 2019 at 16:12, Steve Davies <steve(a)connection-telecom.com> wrote: > Hi, > > I'm having yet another go to get to grips with Pharo. > > My project is for home automation. It seems in principle a great match > since object inside Smalltalk are obviously a great match for physical > objects being controlled. > > I started at the Pharo Wiki on Github "Setting up a new project". > > I'm a career programmer but I'm nearly 60 and sadly I can't absorb > information like I used to be able to, and I'm just finding Pharo so > overwhelming - I feel like a maintenance programmer trying to find a way > into a million lines of code when you don't understand the principles of > organisation and the conventions of the developers. > Consider the analogy would be someone wanting to write Hello World as a newcomer in C and having the source code for the Eclipse IDE in front of them and feeling like they have to understand all of that source code before writing Hello World. Just because because the code for the whole Pharo IDE system is front of you doesn't mean you should feel need to understand it all at once, or even ever. But I remember a similar initial jarring of my workflow before developing a constructive-ignorance mindset. Is there no way to have some sort of "progressive revelation" of the > insides of Pharo? Just documentation on most classes, examples of how to > use the class, without the implementation being exposed initially? > The books and MOOC are probably the best for this https://pharo.org/documentation For something a bit more goal oriented, try Exercism... https://exercism.io/tracks/pharo-smalltalk The stuff I need to look into for my project is mixed in with 1000s of > classes that I (hopefully) can ignore for now - but there seems to be no > way to hide away all the irrelevant stuff. > > Traditionally if I was trying to get to grips with a large unfamiliar code > base I would use grep to search, skim through source files getting a sense > of it. With the browser in Pharo I feel like I'm looking through a > keyhole. No doubt this is just unfamiliarity and I just need to learn the > tools better. > A few things I find useful are: * In the class definition, select a variable the right-click-it > Code Search > References to it * In the Browser, select a class, right-click-it > Class Refs to find some unit tests using it, then debug-into those tests. * Make heavy use of Senders and Implementors to find examples of how things are used. * Add "self haltOnce" into methods so you can observe the call stack of how they are used. Note: "self halt" can be dangerous in system methods you're not familiar with, in case that method is used by the UI loop. haltOnce effectively stops the current UI loop and spawn a new UI loop to keep working. Personally I find it easier to understand the Pharo libraries by watching them run in a debugger than perusing static code. I'm looking forward to trying out the new object-centric-debugging... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDYJIm54yE4 Please read this as a request for help as to how to get a finger hold and > how to shake this feeling of drinking from the firehose? It's not intended > as a complaint. > Cool. It does read that way. Happy to help you settle in. cheers -ben >

Dec. 18, 2019

Re: [Pharo-users] I feel like an overwhelmed maintenance programmer - how to get some toeholds?

by Ben Coman

On Wed, 18 Dec 2019 at 23:05, ponyatov <dponyatov(a)gmail.com> wrote: > I'm speaking about 20K SRAM computers and Java-only services. FFI and VMs > do > not matter here. > Ahh, got it. Pharo's never going squeeze down to a 20K device, but I think its feasible for our StackInterpreter VM to be ported to the ESP32 microprocessor (https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13907) Oh if I had the time... And these devices get more powerful and cheaper every year. Maybe we will get there. cheers -ben

Dec. 18, 2019

Re: [Pharo-users] I feel like an overwhelmed maintenance programmer - how to get some toeholds?

by ponyatov

I'm speaking about 20K SRAM computers and Java-only services. FFI and VMs do not matter here. -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html

Dec. 18, 2019

Re: [Pharo-users] I feel like an overwhelmed maintenance programmer - how to get some toeholds?

by Ben Coman

On Wed, 18 Dec 2019 at 20:06, ponyatov <dponyatov(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hello, colleague. > > I'm also working in the same domain, primarily on the target of adapting > the > Actor model (async distributed messaging) for IoT systems in a wide: from > deeply embedded nodes to top-level north-side cloud cervices. > > I like Pharo as a workstation system and IDE, but I'm not looking Pharo as > a > self-hosted platform for my needs. The problem is all IoT infrastructure it > tightly bound with low-level C for nodes and Java for top-side. There are > dozens and hundreds of existing projects, firmware source codes, platforms, > etc which I must integrate with as is. > > As you know, Smalltalk is well known as bad in interaction with other > existing projects, Historically that was true, but Pharoers saw interaction with the outside as a gap they had to close and third party libraries are not hard to use via FFI.. Here is one small example of my own making calls into the LibSodium crypto library. https://github.com/Traadh/bittrex/search?q=ffi&unscoped_q=ffi If anybody doubts, try to use it the same way as > Lua engine: embed into existing C#/Java project, Embedding Pharo is getting better now that we have a headless VM http://forum.world.st/ANN-Pharo-Headless-Beta-Actually-what-is-between-Alph… able to use an external library like GTK3 for its graphics backend. > or bind it with any > randomly selected C++ library in a click, like Qt, LLVM, wxWidgets or > something fat like this. > Can you link to some info/tutorial on such one-click binding. What workflow should Pharo be trying to emulate? cheers -ben

Dec. 18, 2019

Re: [Pharo-users] Question on MetaLink: access to the calling MessageNode from a MethodNode

by Marcus Denker

> On 18 Dec 2019, at 14:06, Mehrdad Abdi <newmrd(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Hello > > For a specific method, I need to log some information when the method is called, like the state of the receiver, values of arguments, where the method is called, ... . > > Using following MetaLink, Iâm able to capture the receiver and arguments and context. > > link := MetaLink new > metaObject: self; > selector: > #linkBeforeMethodArguments:receiver:selector:context:; > control: #before; > level: 0; > arguments: #( arguments receiver selector context ). > aMethod := MyClass methodNamed: #myMethodArg1:arg2. > aMethod ast link: link > > For capturing the information related to where this method is called, It's possible to extract it from Context, but itâs a dirty way. > Is there any way to access the MessageNode which called this MethodNode? > No, the information is only available via the contextâ¦ even the #sender reification is internally is compiled to "thisContext sender receiverâ. You could add your own reification (that is a class similar to RFSenderReification and implement your own âsendingMethodNodeâ reification, but this would just make it look nicer, not be different from an implementation point of viewâ¦ Marcus

Dec. 18, 2019

Question on MetaLink: access to the calling MessageNode from a MethodNode

by Mehrdad Abdi

Hello For a specific method, I need to log some information when the method is called, like the state of the receiver, values of arguments, where the method is called, ... . Using following MetaLink, Iâm able to capture the receiver and arguments and context. link := MetaLink new metaObject: self; selector: #linkBeforeMethodArguments:receiver:selector:context:; control: #before; level: 0; arguments: #( arguments receiver selector context ). aMethod := MyClass methodNamed: #myMethodArg1:arg2. aMethod ast link: link For capturing the information related to where this method is called, It's possible to extract it from Context, but itâs a dirty way. Is there any way to access the MessageNode which called this MethodNode? Best regards, Mehrdad

Dec. 18, 2019