Squeak-dev January 2000

squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

131 participants
468 discussions

Problems downloading Mark's zipped BookMorph files through a port
by Stewart MacLean 28 Jan '00

28 Jan '00

Mark, (and anybody else who might help) After consulting with out support chap here he pointed out that downloading using: http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu/cs2340/uploads works as expected, whereas: http://coweb.cc.gatech.edu:8888/cs2340/uploads/ch1-history.zip times out. He noted that this address goes through a port :8888. I'm wondering why this works at home on my PC, but not here through the LAN etc? Thanks, Stewart

1 0

Re: fun and empowerment
by Paul McDonough 28 Jan '00

28 Jan '00

> John> And was there a Smalltalk number cited on that survey? > > No, it was focussed on "open source", and I don't think Squeak > was even considered. Oh now *that's* a hoot! Randal, I see your qualiifcation in Comedy includes having passed the Irony exams ... thanks for a chuckle after a long day.

1 0

Re: Squeak and PS2
by Yoshiki Ohshima 28 Jan '00

28 Jan '00

Hi, > I wonder, is anybody working on a port of Squeak to > the PlayStation 2? Is anybody interested on such a > thing? I'm interested in it. You might want to search the mailing list archive with keyword "PlayStation" at http://macos.tuwien.ac.at:9009/Server.home I heard that the development environment costs around 2M yen (= US$20,000). If someone lend it to me, I'll do the "basic" port in weeks. (Surely the hardware accelaration part will take much much longer:-) I also imagine Squeak port for AIBO. An interpreter and self extensible programming system that controls a robot dog with 18(?) analog input/output devices (but without bitmap display:-) How do you think about it? -- Yoshiki

1 0

Re: fun and empowerment (missing the boat).
by Chris Macie 28 Jan '00

28 Jan '00

At 04:08 PM 1/27/00 -0800, you wrote: >Smalltalk is trying to be an airplane (if not a spaceship), so we want it >to miss the boat! Let's just make it fly and we won't have to worry about >boats .... Besides, the boat is named Titanic.

1 0

Re: Swiki Oddity
by John Buffington 28 Jan '00

28 Jan '00

At 04:30 PM 1/27/00 -0800, you wrote: >Well the real oddity is how web browsers (NS & IE) handle <BR> tags when >they are in <TR> tags. In short you get a bunch of extra space above the >table. > >Since the Swiki always replaces CRs with <BR>s, even in tables, you'll >always get the strange result. In contrast other web servers don't have this >problem. > >To see this problem in action take a look at the bottom of the Sandbox page >on minnow. >http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/9 > >Paul FitzGerald They seem to have the problem licked at Swiki.net with the "|" construct. or is this peculiar to their Comanche? See: http://echostar.swiki.net/83 --jbuff Visit the Echostar Knowledge Base http://echostar.swiki.net Echostar and Dish News, FAQs, Bugs, Mods, Magic and More...

1 0

Re: fun and empowerment
by Doug Way 27 Jan '00

27 Jan '00

(Apologies if this shows up on the list twice... but my first posting seems to have gotten lost.) On Thu, 27 Jan 2000, Michael Chean wrote: > My experience also parallels Jerome's. Because of my inexperience I am not > a very strong advocate for Smalltalk, but just the task of convincing my > engineer friends to look outside their comfort zone has proven impossible. > My friend at JPL considers Smalltalk as having missed the boat, which seems > to be the case. When I mentioned that I was following this list he > suggested I look at Tcl/Tk instead. I've actually been using Tcl/Tk as my primary development language at work for the last couple of years, and I can tell you that Smalltalk is still vastly superior as a general-purpose programming language. Tcl/Tk has its good points... mostly Tk, actually. It's arguably slightly better than Smalltalk for writing very small GUI applications, because you can just write a short script. For medium to large GUI applications, the power/flexibility of the language becomes more important, and Smalltalk wins hands down in terms of development time and maintainability. Smalltalk (especially Squeak) is also more fun. Although Tcl/Tk is still relatively fun compared with something like C++. :-) There are other factors to consider... for example, if your application requires a UI with 100% MS Windows look & feel, Squeak probably wouldn't work (yet), although a few of the other Smalltalks would. It's certainly possible to create a reasonably professional UI with Squeak, though... I recently worked on a commercial project with Squeak which accomplished this. (Speaking of which, I made some enhancements to the "BobsUI" UI framework which I've been meaning to release shortly.) If your app just needs to spit out html as a web server, Squeak would be great for that. It's a little odd that your friend mentioned Tcl/Tk as an alternative to something that "missed the boat", as it doesn't really have any greater overall mindshare than Smalltalk. (E.g., if you search monster.com, you will see a similar number of Smalltalk and Tcl/Tk job postings.) - Doug Way EAI/Transom Technologies, Ann Arbor, MI http://www.transom.com dway(a)mat.net, @eai.com

1 0

Re: Crusoe and Squeak
by Jecel Assumpcao Jr. 27 Jan '00

27 Jan '00

Daniel Allan Joyce wrote: > Anyways, the Crusoe does not keep the entire program in cache, only the > currently translated executed bit. It also goes to a lot of trouble to > flow analyze the program, thus ensuring the cache isn't flushed, else it > needs to redo the translation. Here is what I know: - the code morpher is booted from a 1MB serial ROM - the 3120 has 64KB of internal cache memory - you have to reserve from 8 to 16MB of main memory for the code morpher Here is what I am guessing: - that 1MB might be compressed, but I doubt it will take up 8-16MB when copied to RAM - when they talk about translated code being stored in a "cache", they probably mean a software cache in RAM rather than hardware > Why not move the translated program back to ram so over time the whole > thing is translated? If I guessed right, then they are doing just that (except that when translated code exceeds 16MB they start throwing things away so you might never get the whole thing translated at any one time). > Well the 3120 and 5400 are targeted at the embedded and cheap portable > market. Even with the perf hit of retranslation on cache flushes, it > still does well. > > The webpad, running a 3120 at 333 or 400Mhz ( roughly a 250-333Mhz > celeron I figure ) is basically a full size laptop LCD screen with > support for Linux, X, and web tools built in. With a PCMIA III slot, > this is not some dinky PDA system. I have had the chance to play with National's webpad twice in the past two years and it is pretty nice too: http://www.national.com/appinfo/solutions/0,2062,216,00.html They have some 20 or so companies making variations of these in Taiwan, and are coming out with improved designs over the next few months. > Price point for a WebPad is expected to be $500-$1000 dollars. More > than reasonable I think for a "super PDA". The screen is touch > sensitive, and has a translucent virtual keyboard that pops up, and > handwriting input a-la grafiti. Sounds nice. Does it need a base? Disks? > It's coming, it will have tools to allow the building of custom ISAs, > and it will be on the market. It's not sitting in some lab somewhere, > it's here now. I asked them about the custom ISA thing over a week ago, but am still waiting for a reply. They are certainly very busy right now, so I can understand this. > I think with SmallTalk's simple instruction format in terms of the > virtual ISA, the amount of translation overhead for it to run on the > Crusoe may be lower than emuing x86. So it may REALLY scream. Some of these simple instructions are "send message to object", which the x86 lacks (but its forgotten relative, the iAPX432, had :-) > We've got the toy, why not see if someone at transmeta, or Diamond, > etc, bites? <:) > > Maybe someone should register as a "developer" and see if they can get > the meatier developer's kit. Someone from Disney? <:) I did (also a week ago) and all I have gotten so far is a confirmation that I am in their developers news list (which has had no messages so far). There was no confirmation that I am registered as a developed and being considered to receive the material you listed below. > http://www.transmeta.com/dev/ > > Crusoe Hardware Schematics > Designers Specification > Crusoe Processor Data Sheets > BIOS Writer's Guide > > > I'd kill to have smalltalk to run on one of these things! I plan on > buying one. Good luck on your purchase. -- Jecel

1 0

Re: fun and empowerment
by Bijan Parsia 27 Jan '00

27 Jan '00

At 1:42 PM -0500 1/27/00, Michael Chean wrote: >My experience also parallels Jerome's. Because of my inexperience I am not >a very strong advocate for Smalltalk, but just the task of convincing my >engineer friends to look outside their comfort zone has proven impossible. >My friend at JPL considers Smalltalk as having missed the boat, which seems >to be the case. When I mentioned that I was following this list he >suggested I look at Tcl/Tk instead. This is an engineer *friend*! Ouch :) (See a thread on comp.lang.smalltalk about this strange "missing the boat" argument. As if Tcl/Tk has *caught* a boat? Which boat? I know we need gross sorting principles to avoid information overload, but that's ridiculous!) Cheers, Bijan Parsia.

1 0

Re: fun and empowerment
by Doug Way 27 Jan '00

27 Jan '00

On Thu, 27 Jan 2000, Michael Chean wrote: > My experience also parallels Jerome's. Because of my inexperience I am not > a very strong advocate for Smalltalk, but just the task of convincing my > engineer friends to look outside their comfort zone has proven impossible. > My friend at JPL considers Smalltalk as having missed the boat, which seems > to be the case. When I mentioned that I was following this list he > suggested I look at Tcl/Tk instead. I've actually been using Tcl/Tk as my primary development language at work for the last couple of years, and I can tell you that Smalltalk is still vastly superior as a general-purpose programming language. Tcl/Tk has its good points... mostly Tk, actually. It's arguably slightly better than Smalltalk for writing very small GUI applications, because you can just write a short script. For medium to large GUI applications, the power/flexibility of the language becomes more important, and Smalltalk wins hands down in terms of development time and maintainability. Smalltalk (especially Squeak) is also more fun. Although Tcl/Tk is still relatively fun compared with something like C++. :-) There are other factors to consider... for example, if your application requires a UI with 100% MS Windows look & feel, Squeak probably wouldn't work (yet), although a few of the other Smalltalks would. It's certainly possible to create a reasonably professional UI with Squeak, though... I recently worked on a commercial project with Squeak which accomplished this. (Speaking of which, I made some enhancements to the "BobsUI" UI framework which I've been meaning to release shortly.) If your app just needs to spit out html as a web server, Squeak would be great for that. It's a little odd that your friend mentioned Tcl/Tk as an alternative to something that "missed the boat", as it doesn't really have any greater overall mindshare than Smalltalk. (E.g., if you search monster.com, you will see a similar number of Smalltalk and Tcl/Tk job postings.) - Doug Way EAI/Transom Technologies, Ann Arbor, MI http://www.transom.com dway(a)mat.net, @eai.com

1 0

Re: fun and empowerment
by Les Tyrrell 27 Jan '00

27 Jan '00

Michael Chean wrote: > > My experience also parallels Jerome's. Because of my inexperience I am not > a very strong advocate for Smalltalk, but just the task of convincing my > engineer friends to look outside their comfort zone has proven impossible. > My friend at JPL considers Smalltalk as having missed the boat, which seems > to be the case. When I mentioned that I was following this list he > suggested I look at Tcl/Tk instead. None of my engineering friends understood my love for Smalltalk either- but then, they were reluctant to use C instead of Fortran. A big part of it then was that they didn't have a clue what it was about, and there was almost no way to get them to sit still long enough to realize that it wasn't a gui kit, or a scripting language, or a toaster, etc. Smalltalk has been "missing the boat" for three decades. It's still here, and it isn't going away. Once upon a time, people didn't rate languages on popularity, but on fitness to the task. I've been very very happy with it for over a decade. Go ahead- learn Smalltalk. It'll be fun, and the rewards are there. I bet your friends don't use spaces in their Fortran code- so don't expect them to understand. les

1 0

← Newer
1
...
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
...
47
Older →

Jump to page: