Squeak-dev August 1998

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188 discussions

Missing things
by Jörg Rade 21 Aug '98

21 Aug '98

Hi, the following code seems to be out of date (or I removed too many things from my image :-). a) in the comment of BitEditor class>>magnifyWithSmall (category examples) is a reference to MaskedForm which is missing. b) 'Useful expressions' references a method StringHolderView class>>openSystemWorkspace which is missing as well. j|g

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Re: What I would love to know
by Dan Ingalls 21 Aug '98

21 Aug '98

Folks - In private correspondence, I answered a bit more of Stephane's original question, so I'm passing that along in case it's of general interest. Dan Shafer wrote... >I saw your note on the Squeak list about the status, future, and mission >of Squeak. I'm still holding off doing my piece on Smalltalk/Squeak on >the Net. But I wonder if you can or want to comment on the question I >suspect the original questioner was trying to get at: how "official" is >Squeak as a project at Disney? Without divulging product plans (which I >wouldn't expect), can you say whether, e.g., this is a sanctioned Disney >project, a "look the other way as long as these guys do their jobs" kind >of project, or strictly a sunkworks that the bosses don't know about? > >I'm more curious than anything and I would be happy to hear your >response completely off the record or even not for publication let alone >attribution. Well, it's actually simple, and I think we've been pretty forthright about it all along (real openness is one of the things that continues to feel good about this project). Alan is a Disney Fellow. So he and his crew (of which I'm one) are charged with exploring new territory of potential importance to Disney. You don't have to go to many of Alan's talks to know that his focus is in the area of computers and education, and this is the area we explore for Disney. Squeak is our vehicle of choice a) because of its extraordinary malleability, b) because of our complete control over it, and c) because it has a significant following of bright people who contribute everything from valueable criticism to complete subsystems. So Squeak is not a project as such at Disney. We are a project; Squeak is our vehicle. And nobody needs to "look the other way" -- if they or we thought we could get as much done in Java, we'd be using that. What we have accomplished in our first two years with the Mouse has continued to validate this approach both among ourselves and to our management. Hope this helps. - Dan

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Re: Apples to Oranges in FileStream
by invader＠zilker.net 21 Aug '98

21 Aug '98

The three class variables: Read, Write and Shorten are not initialized, so I would steer clear of the readOnly, readWrite, readWriteShorten and writeShorten methods until all that gets straightened. Looks like an extension that isn't done yet. Someone is apparently trying to correct the problem that writable files don't get truncated. Squeak is great, but it has a few pitfalls when you actually try to get something done. PositionableStream>>nextNumber: and nextInt32 have similar problems with missing asInteger after a self next. mkd >Hello again: > >Forgive me if I'm making another boneheaded newbie move here... :) It has >been a while since I've touched Smalltalk and even before I was only in >the 'just learning' stage of things. Squeak has re-ignited my interest. > >I've been tutoring myself from the purple book, and creating some classes >to do various newbieish things. My latest experiment is with FileStreams. >I am trying to open a new file and mark it for Reading and Writing ie: > >fileStream := FileStream newFileNamed: 'some.file'. >fileStream readWrite > > >However, upon execution, I get an error within the FileStream>>readWrite >method. The method sends: > >readWrite > self setMode: Read + Write > >where Read + Write is some SmallInteger class variable. > >The problem is in the FileStream>>setMode method: > >setMode: m > rwmode = m > ifFalse: [(rwmode == nil or: [(rwmode bitAnd: Write) = 0 ..... > > >The rwmode bitAnd: Write is what fails...rwmode does not understand >the bitAnd: message. > >The rwmode instance variable is set in the concreteStream, which >is StandardFileStream. When StandardFileStream creates a new file, it >sets rwmode to a Boolean, in the StandardFileStream>>open:forWrite: >method. Hence, apples to oranges...the Boolean has no bitAnd: method! > >Note that I also have tried opening a file for read using: > >fileStream := FileStream fileNamed: 'some.file' >fileStream readOnly > >without any difficulty (ie no errors with the readOnly message). In fact, >it looks like the same sort of sequence is followed for the readOnly >message, except that it works! Argh! > >Any ideas? Did I mention that I love Squeak? :) I probably should get >more sleep before playing with it though...

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Re: Apples to Oranges in FileStream
by invader＠zilker.net 21 Aug '98

21 Aug '98

>Pitfalls or no, I'm really excited about having access to a decent Smalltalk >VM after all this time. Digging through the associated stream methods was >extremely illuminating for me, even though it was after midnight before I gave >up. :) It is like having an big Computer Science encyclopedia in a little bitty package. All you have to do is read it to learn all kinds of interesting stuff. I haven't gotten to bed before 2 since I got the damn thing. mkd

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Re: Apples to Oranges in FileStream
by invader＠zilker.net 21 Aug '98

21 Aug '98

>In the case you mention, these methods are intended for streams of >bytes, not streams of characters. If you send "binary" to the stream >before calling them, or otherwise use a stream of bytes, then they >work fine. > Well, the author of the rest of the methods in that group: nonhomogeneous accessing in PositionableStream didn't know that because they put asInteger after every call of "self next". The nice thing about doing that is that it ensures that even a stream of characters will work right at the expense of an extra message send per byte. I just point this out because I'm in favor of consistency. It makes everything a lot easier to understand. And I hope someone will have a spare cycle sometime to fix some of these things. I'd like it if both: 2 log and 2 ln returned answers, but they don't. And you are definitely right about being able to fix things. Don't get me wrong. I think Squeak is really cool. One of the things I've got spinning around on my disk is a file with the following header: 'From Smalltalk-80 of June 28th, 1985 on 25 October 1987 at 7:27:05 am'! I've kept it around because I hoped that someday someone would make Smalltalk work on my Mac again. And they have, beyond my wildest imagination. I couldn't do it myself because the VM was not available back then. mkd

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ln and log (was Re: Apples to Oranges in FileStream)
by Donald T. Major, II 21 Aug '98

21 Aug '98

Odd - the ln function's defined the same way in class Number in my image, but it didn't work until I defined it in SmallInteger. Also, log is present as log:, which takes a base. Michael Donegan wrote: > Of course, I know what to do. I'm just hoping it will get fixed in the image. > Actually, I think I would fix this one by putting the fix in Number, just > like all the other math functions. If you fix it in SmallInteger, then you > have to fix it in all the other number subclasses as well. -- .. Donald Major 677-8000, x6937 "I don't remember any dtm System Developer sasdtm @ unx sas com explosions in 'Bambi'..." SAS Instutitute Inc Lexington - 'Gargoyles' http://www.unx.sas.com/~sasdtm/

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Apples to Oranges in FileStream
by Kevin Fisher 21 Aug '98

21 Aug '98

Hello again: Forgive me if I'm making another boneheaded newbie move here... :) It has been a while since I've touched Smalltalk and even before I was only in the 'just learning' stage of things. Squeak has re-ignited my interest. I've been tutoring myself from the purple book, and creating some classes to do various newbieish things. My latest experiment is with FileStreams. I am trying to open a new file and mark it for Reading and Writing ie: fileStream := FileStream newFileNamed: 'some.file'. fileStream readWrite However, upon execution, I get an error within the FileStream>>readWrite method. The method sends: readWrite self setMode: Read + Write where Read + Write is some SmallInteger class variable. The problem is in the FileStream>>setMode method: setMode: m rwmode = m ifFalse: [(rwmode == nil or: [(rwmode bitAnd: Write) = 0 ..... The rwmode bitAnd: Write is what fails...rwmode does not understand the bitAnd: message. The rwmode instance variable is set in the concreteStream, which is StandardFileStream. When StandardFileStream creates a new file, it sets rwmode to a Boolean, in the StandardFileStream>>open:forWrite: method. Hence, apples to oranges...the Boolean has no bitAnd: method! Note that I also have tried opening a file for read using: fileStream := FileStream fileNamed: 'some.file' fileStream readOnly without any difficulty (ie no errors with the readOnly message). In fact, it looks like the same sort of sequence is followed for the readOnly message, except that it works! Argh! Any ideas? Did I mention that I love Squeak? :) I probably should get more sleep before playing with it though...

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Re: What I would love to know
by Christopher Oliver 20 Aug '98

20 Aug '98

Stephane Ducasse <ducasse(a)iam.unibe.ch> writes: > This is just that I came from a reflective nearly dead > language (CLOS) and I had some doubts. <MICRORANT> Hey! Some of us still hack Lisp and CLOS 'cos they too are nifty. Let's not have a fashion show or quarrel as there's much good hack- ing to do regardless of the HLL. </MICRORANT> -- Christopher Oliver Traverse Internet Systems Coordinator 223 Grandview Pkwy, Suite 108 oliver(a)traverse.net Traverse City, Michigan, 49684 let magic f = fun x -> x and more_magic n f = fun x -> f ((n f) x);;

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Squeaky Legos?
by Patrick Logan 20 Aug '98

20 Aug '98

Lego is coming out with a system called Lego Mindstorms in conjunction with the MIT Media Lab and Seymour Papert. It has its own interesting programming language as well as an interface for other languages (Squeak would be nice, wouldn't it?) http://www.legomindstorms.com/press/whatis.html The Robotics Invention System ships with an OCX that interfaces with the brick and the RCX programming language. The OCX can be written to using other programming languages like Microsoft. Visual BasicTM. We will provide via the Internet instruction on how to program to the OCX. Watch www.legomindstorms.com for updates. -- Patrick Logan mailto:patrickl@gemstone.com Voice 503-533-3365 Fax 503-629-8556 Gemstone Systems, Inc http://www.gemstone.com

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RE: What is private? was: hidden methods idea
by R. A. Harmon 20 Aug '98

20 Aug '98

At 01:58 PM 8/19/98 -0700, Mike Klein wrote: >Doesn't the browse already hide all methods that aren't in the currently >selected protocol.... I have used the convention of "hiding" protocols by >prepending the string 'zz ' to the protocol, thereby pushing it to the >bottom of the list; a hack to be sure. > >More to the point would be tagging methods/protocols with semantic >information that a browser could (in a context dependant fashion) then >decide what to show and what to hide. The following seems to me to be the wish list in displaying method selectors in a browser: - organize selectors in to categories. - allow a selectors to be in multiple categories. - allow easy display of all selectors. - allow hierarchical display of selectors. - do not restrict display of selectors. - allow the display of selectors so as to minimize the window space occupied by those selectors not needed for normal usage of a class. - allow different schemes of organization. - allow easy extension of method organization and selector display. - allow tagging methods/protocols with semantic information that a browser could (in a context dependant fashion) then decide what to show and what to hide. If I missed an item or mis-stated one, chime in. I think Dolphin Smalltalk has all of the above and allows one to easily organize methods and view selectors. I'd also like easy user configuration of the selector display. I didn't notice if Dolphin Smalltalk has this. I planned to implement the above in a browser and think it would require at least a Category class and other supporting classes. This will be 3,789th on my list. I would like an easily portable browser so that I may have tools and facilities I'm familiar with in different dialects. The Refactoring Browser seems a good choice. The ANSI stuff would ease its porting, ergo an ANSI Refactoring Browser. An ANSI RB would be a good place to implement the wish list above. I think my list of things to do will require that I will be reincarnated -- multiple times. So many interesting projects, so few lives. -- Richard A. Harmon "The only good zombie is a dead zombie" harmonra(a)webname.com E. G. McCarthy

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