Hi Richard,

I like the way you've persevered to get it to this stage, so I'll be glad to pitch in
now that its got some physicality to the project.

I'm not currently familiar with Bloc and Woden.�� They are systems I've��
been wanting to learn more about but I've not had a "need" to drive me to it.
So I'd value some goal directed learning to help me focus on it. ��

@all, what recipies are you using to kickoff your Visualworks to Pharo ports?
I know I've seen several options mentioned before, but I can't pin them down in the archives.
Also I imagine this area is improving over time, so looking for updated info.

cheers -ben


On Wed, 16 Jan 2019 at 05:44, Richard Kenneth Eng <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com> wrote:
I guess I should provide some more information about the competition. If you visit jrmpc.ca, you will see what it is that David was coding under the section, "Competition Rules."

Here are some screen shots:

A 2D view:
2d-view.png

An OpenGL view:
opengl-view.png

The OpenGL view is only for making videos of the Competition to show to the public. The teams will be working with the 2D view.

Attached is the VisualWorks source that needs to be converted to Pharo. I imagine the real work is re-implementing the graphics using Bloc and Woden. The competition engine should be fairly portable (Famous Last Words).

It's not that big of an application. After all, David did it in only six weeks, even with his really busy schedule.

I suppose I could try to do it myself, but since I'm hardly a Pharo expert, it would take me much, much longer. Could I do it by September? Maybe. I don't know that I'd put money on me, though.

R

On Tue, 15 Jan 2019 at 11:21, Richard Kenneth Eng <horrido.hobbies@gmail.com> wrote:
As you��know, the James Robertson Memorial Programming Competition (or JRMPC) is proceeding. You may recall that the decision was made to use VisualWorks for the competition.

However, I now realize that it was the wrong decision. VisualWorks presents a number of issues, such as:
  1. licensing, esp. to minors (all high school students are minors)
  2. awkward installation
  3. poor community support ��� their forum is dead and their mailing list is a PITA to use
  4. lack of GitHub support ��� GitHub rules the programming world now
  5. aging IDE and lack of innovation
All of this makes for a bad image, which is disastrous from the marketing perspective.

David Buck coded the competition in VisualWorks because he wasn't familiar with Pharo. His code is quite functional and he says it's about 80% complete. He started coding just six weeks ago! So the remaining 20% shouldn't be arduous.

Here are the things left to do:
  • complete the OpenGL rendering of the competition and video recording
  • add code to scan source code submitted by students to prevent malware and cheating
  • add code to allow full automation of the competition
The OpenGL rendering and video recordings will make the competition look much more attractive to the public. This is vital because the competition is a promotional and marketing event, and it has to look really good.

I need a Pharo expert to take over from David and convert the code base to Pharo, then finish the remaining 20%. This needs to be done by September.

I'd really hate to scrap the project when we've made so much progress already. I just need one Pharoer who truly believes that this marketing event is worthwhile. Please give it serious consideration.

Thanks.