Squeak-dev September 1999

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133 participants
357 discussions

Polymorphism and language
by Adam Bridge 02 Aug '00

02 Aug '00

I wonder if we're not asking the wrong question here. Language, it seems to me, is for expression. If we design a language (as opposed to allowing it to evolve) then we should have a goal for that language. What's the goal here? Although polymorphism is certainly an interesting capability shouldn't we be looking at the kinds of tasks we wish to perform? Would we demand an artist work in tempra when water color is what expresses the mood best? Personally I like the idea of small languages that do some things very very well. They are easy to learn because their concepts are clear. If languages can agree on ways to intermingle so I can write my image manipulation in one language and my text in another and my GUI in yet another -- and have them work together intimately and EASILY -- then I think we have a software system which is about expression first and language second. I'd love to easily, trivially, combine Smalltalk, Perl, Fortran, Obj-C and be able to easily explore other languages in this same context: it becomes easy to grow. Adam Bridge

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unsubscribe
by Alek 09 Jun '00

09 Jun '00

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"The Smalltalk-76 Programming System: Design and Implementation" paper now online....
by Dwight Hughes 01 Nov '99

01 Nov '99

I just put Dan Ingall's classic paper "The Smalltalk-76 Programming System: Design and Implementation" from the Fifth Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages, January 1978, online at my site: http://users.ipa.net/~dwighth/smalltalk/St76/Smalltalk76ProgrammingSystem.h… My thanks go to Dan and ACM for giving me their permission to publish this -- but especially to Dan since he even went to the trouble to send me scanned images of this paper to work from since I didn't have a copy of it available. Enjoy. -- Dwight

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Article in Wired
by Andrew C. Greenberg 11 Oct '99

11 Oct '99

The July 1999 Wired has a brief piece on Squeak on page 158, entitled "Exquisite Computing." Missing the point entirely as the media so often does, the article observes that Squeak has "text-wrapping and manipulation features that would make PageMaker green with envy." But hey, the piece, at least, has a screen shot and encourages folks to visit http://www.squeak.org. Just so long as they spell our name right. So, in anticipation of the new raft of newbies this is bound to engender, let's polish up the help pages and welcome them to the world of real computing. Its time -- what can we do to help?

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RE: Eliminating assignments and variable syntax (accessors)
by Lex Spoon 10 Oct '99

10 Oct '99

Bijan Parsia <bparsia(a)email.unc.edu> wrote: > At 10:55 PM -0400 8/11/99, Lex Spoon wrote: > > >Well, it's certainly open to discussion :) I'd think it best to count the > >first indent as just part of method definition. So to get a block inside a > >method, you'd have to add *another* indentation, like this: > > > > myMethod > > | x y z | > > x := 1 > > y := 2 > > z := 3 > > Blargh! That's gross! Imagine the errors! You can't *tell*, without a > comment, whether this is a misindentation or a block. *Silent*, *SEMANTIC* > errors due to copy and paste are evil. Python doesn't have *that* problem. > Well, I'm sure people would get real careful with how far they indent. And we'd get real good at reading it, too, so long as we don't read source code from *other* smalltalks. When indentation has a lot of significance, it should be as easy to mis-indent as it would to accidentally place a BEGIN keyword in the middle of somewhere: possible but not common. In fact, it's surely easier for an author to notice an extra tab floating around, than it is for them to notice an extra [ tossed in somewhere. > > > >This syntax also works out fine for storing a block into a variable: > > > > myMethod > > | b x y | > > b := > > x := 1 > > y := 2 > > ^b > > > >It doesn't *look* real nice, but the fact that it's different is surely a > >big contributor. > > However big a contributer it may be, it's contribution is *totally* swamped > by the contribution of the intrinsic butt-ugliness of it :) Ugh. Espeically > with the caret making the "b"s visually misalign! > Heheh, well, okay. Can't really argue with you there. :) Lex

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Slow posts (PWS)
by bolot 02 Oct '99

02 Oct '99

Has anyone figured this one out? If somebody posted a solution, etc., please disregard this message. It seems to be a combination of VM and Squeak networking problem. The problem shows up on NT, but not so much on Macs or UNIX. The culprit seems to be Socket>>waitForDataUntil: method (called from HTTPSocket>>getResponseUpTo: or PWS>>readRequest). Even if it succeeds, it seems to take an aweful lot of time to complete. We commented it out, and things work faster. Bolot

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Re: Squeak on handheld?
by Marc Nijdam 01 Oct '99

01 Oct '99

"John Tobler" <squeakie(a)visto.com> writes: > This is a call for a brief report from you all on which > tiny devices someone has made Squeak-capable (to one degree > or another). > > Recent mention of the Casio E105 (WinCE) and the new Visor > (Palm clone with 8MB of RAM for $250, hardware upgradeable) > has inspired me with technolust! I have examined a number > of messages in the archives but find myself unable to list > precisely which little devices currently support Squeak and > which do not. Should I conclude that currently Palm OS > is "out" and (ouch!) Win CE is "in."" > > The E105 looks really cool, but pricey. I can skip all the > extras but what I *really* want is to be able to tote > everywhere a working Squeak image, including browsers. > Capability to run Morphic would be a big plus but not an > absolute requirement (although the Morphic code would > *have* to be in the image for study and reference purposes). > > Here's my personal wish list. > > * I want something with functioning browsers, > so that I can study the Squeak hierarchy > in my few spare moments. > > * I want a Squeaky device I can grab and use > -- wherever I am -- for image reference and > (at least) limited editing in those odd > mid-night, not-at-home moments when my > muse usually chooses to strike. > > * Laptops, kneetops, and palmtops are too big -- > the thingie must be able to accompany me on > a walk, a bus, an airplane, into a restaurant, > and (especially) into the "little programmers' > room." No, it doesn't have to survive the > shower. > > * Color would be nice but not required. > > * I'm not sure I could justify the bucks for > an E105. I'd like to find something > workable for under $300. > > * I would prefer to avoid paying usury to > the Evil Empire. > > * I live in beautiful San Diego, so my erstwhile > electronic companion must have certain beach > survival skills. > > > So, which are the candidates for "Squeaky Handheld Device > of the Year?" Which might make it into the "almost usable" > category? Which are "gonna be great someday!" Which will > likely always be just a "wannabe"? Not to promote stuff from my employer... but did you consider the Jornada 820. I just got one of them. It's a CE device with a reasonable keyboard. Display is a bit slow (maybe if it would boot Squeak ;-) I've no idea whether Squeak has been ported to it though? Marc

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red/yellow/blue buttons an anachronism?
by Robert M. Fuhrer 01 Oct '99

01 Oct '99

Hi All, This may sound silly, but... Is anyone else bothered by the apparently arbitrary use of "red/yellow/blue" to identify the mouse buttons in the source? I never remember which is which. Maybe it's because I go from Squeak on Mac to Linux to WinNT, or because I've never had an opportunity to work heads-down with the Smalltalk UI code to get it into my medulla, but it just doesn't work for me. So, is this an anachronism we can live without? I'd guess that cross-platform issues are part of the reason it hasn't been changed already (e.g. Macs use single mouse button + modifier key), so perhaps a set of more symbolic labels would work better, like (off the top of my head (or maybe that's the wrong end of the beast :^|)) "select"/"context"/"global". Or, perhaps the buttons should be relabeled pink/blue/black, to signify incremental improvement, paradigm shift, and no improvement whatsoever :-). -------------------------------- Robert M. Fuhrer 34-231 (914) 945-3830 IBM T. J. Watson Research Center rfuhrer(a)watson.ibm.com Yorktown Heights, NY 10598 PGP Public Key available on request

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An image is a lonely place
by Tom Morgan 01 Oct '99

01 Oct '99

I've been noticing how lonesome it is inside an image. There are lots of strong place based/community elements which surround Squeak. These are currently formed by the basic networked apps of email, the discussion Swiki, the mail archives, and so on. There is now lots of machinery which is available which would allow basic collaborative support right inside a running image (and there are some spacey ones imagineable using the 3D stuff that feel like 'Snowcrash') The kinds of things that I have in mind revolve around establishing a sense of 'place', which is shared, 'embodiment' of you the user explicitly some how in the interface and some amount of 'awareness' of the presence of others in the shared place, all done with a light enough touch that we don't end up with avatar fashion shows. In this picture, an Morphic book wouldn't be found by reaching out across the network and loading it; instead, there'd be a more or less far away part of your image (maybe dressed up as an Alice world) that would let you wander around and find the book you wanted. Perahaps the author would hand it to you, if he happened to be around. While working, instead of the discussion Swiki, there'd be small knots of others, gathered around places of interest to them. You could glance around and see if anyone was nearby, possibly interested in what you were up to. Over the course of a few years, I have seen naive users comfortably navigate incredibly complex graph structures, when they are presented with a place based metaphor. I am not sure how universally appealing these interface metaphors are, but they seem to be captivating for at least some portion of the population. I remember one posting about trying to incorporate the ICQ protocols into Squeak. Are there others padding around this collaborative territory? ...Tom M

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RE: red/yellow/blue buttons an anachronism?
by Michael Klein 30 Sep '99

30 Sep '99

The names of the buttons should be semantic, not color or positional. Pity the left-handed, color-blind Smalltalkers. In MVC, <select> <operate> and <window> are the names I think of for the mouse. In Morphic, <select> <operate> and <halo> . Note the strange verbification of the third button for both frameworks. Or is it a noun :-?

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