Squeak-dev November 2001

squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

174 participants
374 discussions

RE: [OT] GEM, Blitter, and Atari ST (was: RE: Debian and SqueakL revisited again)
by G.J.Tielemans＠dinkel.utwente.nl 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

Around 1981 Belgium did produce the DAI computer with a separate graphical processor. Bad logistics was the cause that the first computer course on Dutch Television did not use this computer but the Exidy Sorcerer. -----Original Message----- From: Peter Crowther [mailto:peter.crowther@networkinference.com] Sent: Friday, November 02, 2001 11:04 AM To: 'squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org' Subject: RE: [OT] GEM, Blitter, and Atari ST (was: RE: Debian and SqueakL revisited again) > From: Kevin Fisher [mailto:kgf@golden.net] > I still have ancient computer magazines that mention the > "Lorraine", the former codename for the first Amiga. I still have an Amiga 1000, one of the first batch of ten development boxes that got shipped into the UK. *Way* ahead of its time, with huge hardware acceleration to help with the graphics --- a blitter, line drawer and polygon filler on one chip, and a scan-driven video coprocessor on another that allowed you to change I/O register contents as the scan passed a given point on the screen. I still miss the ability to slide entire *screens* of information up and down the monitor smoothly. Oh, and it had a decent multitasking OS instead of a DOS clone :-). I think the Amiga illustrates an important point for the thread about 'modern' games. The designers went to a lot of effort to push common operations into faster blocks --- in the Amiga's case, into hardware. This cost CPU cycles, as the coprocessors stole from the processor bandwidth (and the 68000 had no cache). Squeak can do the same by pushing common operations into faster blocks --- in Squeak's case, into plug-ins that may then use native hardware support. - Peter

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Re: [celeste] moving from Communicator to Celeste....
by danielv＠netvision.net.il 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

Cool, I don't know of anyone with quite that much mail in Celeste! I think you can probably live happily in Celeste, and I'm sure you'll get plenty of help if you need it (on the list or off it), but you should know you might need to get your elbows dirty to get good performance. I've used Celeste with 130MB very happily, and I think some people have somewhat more. What might be too slow for your comfort is the operation of saving and loading the index, which is dependent on how many messages you have. However, this is only done when you open/close Celeste, so that's not too bad. Another thing is that the in memory index, well, takes up memory... As Lex said, we have plans to overhaul the Celeste indexes, which are somewhat stuck, but maybe they'll be unstuck if that gives you trouble. About the conversion - Nope, we don't have a Communicator format mail reader/importer. However, it's pretty easy to write them - that's how I converted from MH, for example - I wrote the class MHMainInboxFile (all two methods of it). Your milage might vary - but a Communicator filter would probably be useful to other people too. Then you put your class in MailBD>>importMailFrom:intoCategory: instead of MailInboxFile, and voila. Anther question - Do you have a deep mail category tree? Celeste has a flat list. You'll have to think what you want to do with that. Daniel John Hinsley <jhinsley(a)telinco.co.uk> wrote: > I'd like to switch from Communicator to Celeste. I don't have any > problems with multiple ISPs and such. > > The problem I do have is simply the huge amount (well, hugeness is > relative, currently nudging half a gig and all in standard Netscape 4.7* > on *nix format) of stuff I have to transfer over. It can't be as simple > as copying all the child directories over, or can it? > > Ideas, advice and cries of "don't do it!" welcome. > > Cheers > > John > -- > If you don't care about your data, like file systems which automagically > destroy themselves and have money to burn on 3rd party tools to keep > your > system staggering on, Microsoft (tm) have the Operating System for you.

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Re: What's "Linking" under the GPL?
by goran.hultgren＠bluefish.se 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

Hi Andrew and all! [Throwing myself back into the fray discussing licenses with a lawyer (ex?) - am I suicidal or what! :-)] "Andrew C. Greenberg" <werdna(a)mucow.com> wrote: > On Thursday, November 1, 2001, at 04:00 AM, goran.hultgren(a)bluefish.se > wrote: > > > I do understand your observation but honestly - all these comparisons > > between FSF/GNU/Richard Stallman and Communism/Soviet Union are: > > > > 1. Quite boring because we have heard them oh so many times... > > 2. Often rather unenlightened (not always, but often) > > 3. Often pure propaganda (see Microsoft trying to pull the EXACT same > > stunt) > > 4. IMHO just totally wrong > > > > The GPL is engineered on purpose to foster free software in favour of > > "closed proprietary software" (pick your own words if those sound > > wrong). SqueakL and MIT are not. > > Well, not to support the analogy, but there is little doubt that "free > software" engineered so you can't do things with it isn't particularly > free. The use, indeed pedantic insistence by RMS, on using newspeak in > lieu of English and reason to describe things proves this more clearly > than anything else. With all due respect, the authoritarian regime of > the GPL, whose function is to constrain and limit what may be done with > the software, as opposed to the Berkeley license, whose primary function > is to pass the software along, shifting risk to the licensee, reserving > the bare bones minimum obligation of acknowledgment, makes clear to all > which is the free license. > > The fact that you can't use GPL in a monolithic image, unless you can > relicense EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE IMAGE under GPL proves this clearly. It all comes down to how you define "free" and I also like the BSD/MIT variant mostly in favour of GPL. But I can still understand the mechanics behind GPL and the reasoning behind it. I would say that GPL is more like "free, and it bloody well should stay free"-license than the MIT/BSD - "free, and you can do what you want with it including making it nonfree"-license. To then liken FSF/GPL (etc) with the Soviet when FSF in fact are trying hard to keep software free, sounds really strange to me... > As to Goran's points, none of them are substantive. 1 and 2 amount to > name-calling, proving nothing. 3 is also name-calling and silly, > presuming that references to Microsoft somehow marginalizes an argument, > and ignores the fact that a substantial contingent of the Slashdot crowd > make the same arguments. And 4 simply states a conclusion. In short, > none of the four points constitute argument. Interestingly, the I didn't realize that I was in court! ;-) It was just a bunch of subjective statements but I still stand by them: 1. I HAVE heard this comparison over and over and it is boring TO ME at least. 2. Those making the comparison have often not read anything about the argument behind the GPL or the ideas of FSF. 3. Microsoft has clearly also been going after GPL/FSF calling it names thus trying to throw dirt on the "free/opensource community". 4. And yes, I still think it is totally wrong comparing it with communism. > paragraph after the numbered points proves too much -- the "engineering" > of a society of software users seems, to me, to make the original > poster's point more than otherwise. I said that the LICENSE is engineered, not the users. Don't put words in my mouth, please. ;-) My point is that the GPL has a different purpose than the BSD/MIT/SqueakL-like licenses and if you like that purpose then there is nothing "wrong" in it. > For me, the main problem with the government analogies is that they are > not useful. Even if perfectly descriptive, they are not prescriptive in Agree. > any meaningful sense, and thus, quibbling about their applicability is > nothing more than empty wordplay, leading to arguments such as the above > listing "points" that prove nothing. Well, since the author thought GPL was like communism (I know, that wasn't his exact words) I think he has grossly misunderstood it, and that is why I stepped up to the plate. And the list wasn't trying to prove anything, that was why I asked the question: > > I have a question here: What do you dislike about the GPL? (assuming > > that you do dislike the system of old Soviet Union) > > The fact that it ultimately limits what I can do with the software in a > manner that can rarely be repaired without substantial expense. I can't > use GPL software in a monolithic image, and that's very bad for I would say that you can't use it it a NON GPLd monolithic image. And that is exactly what the author of the GPLd licensed code wants, right? Since he chose GPL he has given you a license to use his code in a certain way and that does not include mixing it with non GPL software - so be it. It is what the author wants, what is your problem more exactly? Do you want to be able to do exactly what you want with the software including closing it up? Ok, then ask the author if you can get such a license then! And if he says "No, I don't want that.", then respect his wish and let it go. ;-) > Smalltalk coders. And, in practice, it is impossible to renegotiate a > significant term for a proprietary license. What did you mean by that? "significant term"? My swedish english parser didn't grok that part. :-) > I do a lot of open source compliance advise, and can freely attest that > the GPL raises far more problems for promoting the free use of > software. Happily, I am nerd as much as lawyer, and can frequently > point clients to corresponding free software they can use in its stead. > > GPL doesn't promote the propagation of free software (again, using the > english denotation of the word "free" rather than the FSF appropriation > thereof) so much as it promotes the propagation of GPL'd software. RMS True - using your view of "free", which is more or less the BSD-view I think. In short, one of the most crucial things to understand with the GPL is the fact that it tries to "protect" software from being turned "non free". Thus it protects "the next guy" in the foodchain. A common example: Microsoft grabbed the BSD-licensed TCP/IP stack and stuffed it in NT (I think it was NT). They turned it "non free" and they sure don't share any of their improvements of it back to the BSD camp (afaik). This means that the "next guy" - the NT user - has no source and can't improve upon the software. He got the "closed up" version from Microsoft. Ok, now even if you (and I) like "free" as in BSD, it is quite obvious that GPL tries hard to KEEP software free for the "next guy" too. Now tell me, where is the "communism" in this? > is pleased to admit the truth of this, and to defend it. Not all of us > share all of his "vision." True again. But some of us at least understands the vision (you do probably too) and respect it. Remember - nothing forces you to use GPL - it is a choice like any other license. regards, Göran PS. I hope I am not upsetting anyone here - it is NOT my intention... I like the discussion. DS

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Re: Debian and SqueakL revisited again...(was Re: Debian source package)
by goran.hultgren＠bluefish.se 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

John Hinsley <jhinsley(a)telinco.co.uk> wrote: [SNIP] > > Oops, didn't know that. Ok, so we are basically not going into Debian > > then. > > Bummer. > > Indeed, especially as Debian looks to become much more widely used now > that the diskpacks are being sold (for cost, of course!) in more > countries. I see it working like this: newbie buys RedHat, gains feet > and confidence, and at some point either has to spend ages on line (with > possible ASP nonesense) buy a new commercial distribution, or go Debian. > I'm thinking of it myself! Yep, that seems to be the case. I started out a long time ago with Slackware, moved to RedHat and then Mandrake to finally arrive, where most all seasoned Linuxers seem to end up, at Debian. Being noncommercial Debian has a few nice aspects - it won't go out of business :-), it won't ship bad stuff because of falling stock prices, and I can always (like in the Squeak community) easily get in contact with the responsible person. And the package system is the best I have ever seen. The reason why I think Debian is important to Squeak is that there are plenty of really good programmers running Debian. And if we could attract a few of those to Squeak... Andrew Greenberg wrote: > From a legal and policy point of view, I'm sure we could get approval to > a modified Squeak-L, to the extent it embodied the corresponding > portions and concessions of the APSL language. There may be a political > issue, however, as Alan has seemed in the past VERY reticent to reopen > the matter with Apple legal. ... and Stephen Pair wrote: > If possible, the license issue should be addressed...not because there > are any real > technical issues with SqueakL, but because many people seem to have > problems with it > because it is not blessed as an "open source" license (for a few > technical reasons). > > I think the requirement for a new license (if any) should be that it > stick as closely > as possible to the current SqueakL, and that it be blessed by > www.opensource.org. Well, SqueakL is probably already OpenSource (I guess) so I am not sure you really need to change it in order to get it blessed as that. People that only care for stuff being OpenSource and that actually do know what it means - are probably quite satisfied as is. But a stamp from Eric Raymond is always good. :-) But being stamped as OpenSource doesn't make it "DFSG free" which means it still won't go into Debian. From what I have read on the net APSL1.2 is not "DFSG free" either - there have been quite a lot of discussion on the clauses regarding "making modifications publicly available" etc. Debian has a rather high standard for software being free and I admire them for that distinction. Linux is spreading all over the world, especially in poor countries and, for example, the clause no 6 in SqueakL regarding "Export Law Assurances" might of course in an international view be a problem. The two practical problems that I have sofar seen discussed with SqueakL regards compatibility with GPL/LGPL and inclusion in Debian. If I remember correctly (and I didn't find it on the Swiki) GPL nor LGPL code can be brought into the base image but you can build a Squeak app and release it as GPL or LGPL. Is that right? Most people probably care about the last part I guess. Andrew Greenberg also wrote: > There was, for a few versions (somewhere between 2.4 and 2.7), a message > that clearly stated that contributions and changes were, unless > expressly stated otherwise, made under Squeak-L. I don't think it is in > the present version, but it ought to be placed back, as a matter of good > legal hygiene. Yes I second this. And perhaps we could complement the upcoming repository/modules system with some license mechanisms - easy way of stamping a license on a module and also easily have a list available describing what licenses play together etc. regards, Göran

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Re: [Bug][VM][OSProcessPlugin]Does not run on Solaris
by Richard A. O'Keefe 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

"David T. Lewis" <lewis(a)mail.msen.com> wrote: Sorry for the inconvenience. If you happen to know the Solaris equivalent of setenv(3), please let me know so I can fix it correctly. I've never heard of setenv(3). Does it do the same as the fairly common UNIX putenv(3C)? (putenv() is certainly available under Solaris and OSF/1; I don't know what else has it. Solaris 2.8 and OSF/1 don't have any unsetenv(), although OSF/1 has a clearenv() that zaps the environment variable table completely, Solaris doesn't.)

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RE: Lots of concurrency
by Ken Kahn 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

David Chase wrote: > I don't know if this has much relevance to Squeak, but in my > experience programmers, and I think people in general, are much > happier thinking sequentially. The sort of bugs that occur with > unstructured parallelism are just too Martian for most people to > contemplate. On the other hand, if every method is "synchronized" > (to use the Java phrase), it is generally too expensive, and also > not enough (to refer back to someone else's transaction example -- > books must balance). > Whether people are "happier thinking sequentially" is a very important question. [As an aside, people clearly don't think sequentially - the brain has huge amounts of internal parallelism. And I think it is just an illusion that this parallelism is only at a low level (e.g. neurons). Read Minsky's Society Theory of Mind ( http://www.media.mit.edu/people/minsky/ ) for example.] Thinking sequentially about problems that are inherently concurrent is suboptimal. Here's an excerpt from "MultiLogo: A Study of Children and Concurrent Programming" ( http://el.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/Papers/mres/MultiLogo/MultiLogo.html ) where a fourth-grade girl (F) who had programmed Logo for a year was asked to "program" a situation in which she had to sweep the floor and her brother had to set the table for dinner: F: I'm going to tell him to start setting the table, which he won't do. Anyway, he starts on the table, then I go back and start sweeping. M: So you're going to ask him to set the table, and then you're going to start sweeping. F: But when I tell him to do it, he only does one plate. But there are five people that he has to set places for and he only sets one plate. Because he has to repeat this thing. And I have to repeat. I only make one stroke with my broom. But we have to repeat it forever. But there is no way both of us... I think her problem is that her model of programming is sequential as a result of her year of Logo programming. And the world isn't sequential. Think of sports teams. Think of traffic. Think of the internal concurrency in walking. In games. Think about bank account transfers. The Incredible Machine. Cooking. An orchestra. And so on. "Unstructured parallelism" is fine UNLESS the concurrent activities can interfere with each other. That's why I'm not excited about taking sequential languages and adding threads or the like. You need to redesign from scratch to deal well with concurrency. There's been a lot of discussion here of transactions. I agree that programming transactions using locks is just "too Martian". [Maybe that's why the ToonTalk help character is Marty the Martian ;-)] Here's how I would program them in ToonTalk. I'd program a bank account robot to respond to a message to give exclusive attention. The message contains a nest where subsequent messages will arrive. (And probably a bird that is given an acknowledgement that the message was processed.) The robot takes the nest where messages normally arrive and stores it somewhere in its box and puts the incoming nest where that nest was. In case you want to back out of an aborted transaction the robot should have copied its box and stored it as well. Now when the sender of the message has exclusive control over this bank account. All of its messages go to the nest it sent and messages from anyone else go to the stored nest. To end exclusive control a message is sent releasing it and a robot handles it by throwing away the copy of the old state and the nest and puts the original nest back where it was. (And any messages that were sent in the meanwhile are still on top and are now processed). This isn't very complicated - I bet a typical 10-year old familar with ToonTalk can master this. As with any code, bugs are possible. The most serious one being to forget to end exclusive control when you are done. > > I also think that truly asynchronous communication is a dubious > idea. The worst parts of Java (the deprecated bits) are more > or less asynchronous (Thread.stop,suspend,resume). We ended > up (in our Java system) hiding almost all asynchrony; threads > yield at well-defined points, garbage collection occurs at > well-defined points, etc, all enforced by the compiler/VM (in > the safe language, there are no infinite loops, period). > and in "Little Deadlocks and the Three Bears" by Jecel Mattos de Assumpcao Jr. ( http://www.lsi.usp.br/~jecel/stories/deadlocks.html ) he defines asynchronous: "asynchronous - the synchronous messages used in CSP couple the communication of information with the communication of events. With asynchronous messages the two are separated (communication of event is then done with semaphores and similar structures) allowing great flexibility in system design. This also means there are great opportunities for mistakes, so understanding and debugging asynchronous systems is not a trivial task. " These problems with asynchronous messages don't match my experience. Maybe these problems are completely a consequence of mixing asynchrony and sequential programming. > I am afraid that I am perhaps focusing on this at too low a > level for this crowd, but the subject of the thread is "lots > of concurrency", and I am not sure what that is really intended > to mean. Normally, I think it implies performance. > To me concurrency means simultaneous activities (and if just running on a single processor then at least conceptually simultaneous). Parallelism (running on multiple CPUs under your control) and distributed programming (running on communicating computers typically controlled by different parties) are special cases. Simultaneous activities are a good idea when there is a conceptual match, when there are CPUs going idle, or when it is inherent (e.g. distributed computing). Best, -ken kahn ( www.toontalk.com )

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[Bug][VM][OSProcessPlugin]Does not run on Solaris
by Torge Husfeldt 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

Hi All, I have a problem with the OSProcess plugin. I cannot get it to run on my Solaris machine. I downloaded the changeset, moved the .c file into the vm-source hierarchy and compiled and installed all. (Just changed the $(prefix) because this isn't _my_ machine. When I start the new vm with a recent Image i get the following error messages: ioLoadModule(/tmp/thu/Squeak/lib/squeak/3.1a-4164/UnixOSProcessPlugin.so): ld.so.1: /tmp/thu/Squeak/bin/squeak: fatal: relocation error: file /tmp/thu/Squeak/lib/squeak/3.1a-4164/UnixOSProcessPlugin.so: symbol unsetenv: referenced symbol not found ioLoadModule(/tmp/thu/Squeak/lib/squeak/3.1a-4164/UnixOSProcessPlugin.so): ld.so.1: /tmp/thu/Squeak/bin/squeak: fatal: relocation error: file /tmp/thu/Squeak/lib/squeak/3.1a-4164/UnixOSProcessPlugin.so: symbol unsetenv: referenced symbol not found ioLoadModule(/tmp/thu/Squeak/lib/squeak/3.1a-4164/UnixOSProcessPlugin.so): ld.so.1: /tmp/thu/Squeak/bin/squeak: fatal: relocation error: file /tmp/thu/Squeak/lib/squeak/3.1a-4164/UnixOSProcessPlugin.so: symbol unsetenv: referenced symbol not found What am I doing wrong? Do you need more Info about my system to answer this? Any help appreciated. Torge

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RE: [Bug][VM][OSProcessPlugin]Does not run on Solaris
by Pennell, David 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

> Sorry for the inconvenience. If you happen to know the > Solaris equivalent > of setenv(3), please let me know so I can fix it correctly. It looks like Solaris supports getenv() and putenv(). Man pages follow: Standard C Library Functions getenv(3C) NAME getenv - return value for environment name SYNOPSIS #include <stdlib.h> char *getenv(const char *name); DESCRIPTION The getenv() function searches the environment list (see environ(5)) for a string of the form name=value and, if the string is present, returns a pointer to the value in the current environment. RETURN VALUES If successful, getenv() returns a pointer to the value in the current environment; otherwise, it returns a null pointer. USAGE The getenv() function can be safely called from a mul- tithreaded application. Care must be exercised when using both getenv() and putenv(3C) in a multithreaded applica- tion. These functions examine and modify the environment list, which is shared by all threads in an application. The system prevents the list from being accessed simultane- ously by two different threads. It does not, however, prevent two threads from successively accessing the environ- ment list using getenv() or putenv(3C). ATTRIBUTES See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri- butes: ____________________________________________________________ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | |_____________________________|_____________________________| | MT-Level | Safe | |_____________________________|_____________________________| SEE ALSO exec(2), putenv(3C), attributes(5), environ(5) SunOS 5.8 Last change: 29 Dec 1996 1 ================================================================= Standard C Library Functions putenv(3C) NAME putenv - change or add value to environment SYNOPSIS #include <stdlib.h> int putenv(char *string); DESCRIPTION The putenv() function makes the value of the environment variable name equal to value by altering an existing vari- able or creating a new one. In either case, the string pointed to by string becomes part of the environment, so altering the string will change the environment. The string argument points to a string of the form name=value. The space used by string is no longer used once a new string-defining name is passed to putenv(). The putenv() function uses malloc(3C) to enlarge the environment. After putenv() is called, environment variables are not in alphabetical order. RETURN VALUES The putenv() functions returns a non-zero value if it was unable to obtain enough space using malloc(3C) for an expanded environment. Otherwise, 0 is returned. ERRORS The putenv() function may fail if: ENOMEM Insufficient memory was available. USAGE The putenv() function can be safely called from mul- tithreaded programs. Caution must be exercised when using this function and getenv(3C) in multithreaded programs. These functions examine and modify the environment list, which is shared by all threads in a program. The system prevents the list from being accessed simultaneously by two different threads. It does not, however, prevent two threads from successively accessing the environment list using putenv() or getenv(). ATTRIBUTES See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri- butes: SunOS 5.8 Last change: 12 Jan 1998 1 Standard C Library Functions putenv(3C) ____________________________________________________________ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | |_____________________________|_____________________________| | MT-Level | Safe | |_____________________________|_____________________________| SEE ALSO exec(2), getenv(3C), malloc(3C), attributes(5), environ(5) WARNINGS The string argument should not be an automatic variable. It should be declared static if it is declared within a func- tion because it cannot be automatically declared. A poten- tial error is to call putenv() with a pointer to an automatic variable as the argument and to then exit the cal- ling function while string is still part of the environment. SunOS 5.8 Last change: 12 Jan 1998 2

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Re: [celeste] moving from Communicator to Celeste....
by danielv＠netvision.net.il 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

Hi Alan. I've never seen Eudora, never mind it's heart ;-) I'm interested in what you think Celeste lacks to be at that level... (Minimal means different things to different people - Celeste doesn't feel minimal to me.. naturally..) Daniel Alan Kay <Alan.Kay(a)squeakland.org> wrote: > I think the heart of Eudora qualifies as a minimal workable email > client. I would love to see Celeste taken to that level, including a > nicer UI (though Eudora could also be better in this regard). It > would be nice to have a global "Celeste & other comm flap", etc. > > Cheers, > > Alan > > ----- > > > At 5:32 PM -0600 10/31/01, Jimmie Houchin wrote: > >John Hinsley wrote: > > > >> I'd like to switch from Communicator to Celeste. I don't have any > >> problems with multiple ISPs and such. > >> > >> The problem I do have is simply the huge amount (well, hugeness is > >> relative, currently nudging half a gig and all in standard Netscape 4.7* > >> on *nix format) of stuff I have to transfer over. It can't be as simple > >> as copying all the child directories over, or can it? > >> > >> Ideas, advice and cries of "don't do it!" welcome. > >> > >> Cheers > >> > >> John > >> > > > >I too, would like to switch from Communicator to Celeste. > > > >I use Communicator on WinME (at work, no choice :( ) and at home on > >Debian Sid with Mozilla 0.95. I tried Ximian's Evolution but just > >didn't/haven't really liked it. > > > >I have 10s to 100+ mailboxes hierarchically organized. > >I have close to 600mb and 90,000 messages in mail. > > > >I would love for Celeste to be able to handle that. > > > >It seems to me (maybe incorrectly) that Celeste would need to do > >similarly to other clients in that the mail file needs to be broken > >up into multiple files, generally according to the mailbox scheme > >set up by the user. > > > >In Communicator each mailbox has it's own file and index. I believe > >Eudora is similar. > > > >I asked my wife the other day what it would take to get her away > >from Eudora. She's open to such a move but it would have to be > >reasonably feature equivalent and user friendly. She and my children > >are currently on Macs. > > > >It would be nice if Celeste had UI choices (skins, chromes, faces, > >whatever). One of which was similar to the other email clients so > >that a migration path could be made from Communicator, Outlook, > >Eudora, etc to Celeste. After migrating and becoming comfortable > >with Celeste/Squeak then they could possibly if they choose move to > >a potentially different and more powerful UI. > > > >Being able to import or use standard mbox format mailboxes would be > >great. I frequently join mailing lists which have either > >downloadable archives or archives available from the mail server. It > >would be nice for Celeste to handle that. > > > >For example this mailing list is archived (back to July 01) at: > >http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/ > > > >I look forward to using Celeste and hopefully contributing to it's > >advancement once I become more Squeak proficient. > > > >Jimmie Houchin > > > --

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I Love Squeak !
by Russ Van Rooy 02 Nov '01

02 Nov '01

Hi Squeak People ! I am mostly just a lurker on this mail/news list about Squeak. I've been "playing" with Squeak ever since there has been a version that runs on Windows ( what was that, something like version 1.3 ? ) and have really enjoyed the diverse conversations that crop up on this list - even the acrimonious ones ;-/ . I have watched Squeak become more and more useable with excitement. I am not a professional developer but I am a professional software tester ( currently dot-canned, but that's another story ) . Every so often I become re-interested in the latest Squeak/Smalltalk developments and I get the bug to play around some more with Squeak. The problem is that I too many interests - so I am not always climbing that learning curve. Lately ,since I've had more time on my hands, I've been using the latest alpha version of Squeak ( 3.2 alpha 4441) and for what I've been doing, it seems quite stable. I really like the UI improvements, the more 3-Dimensional look and feel, and it *does* seem to run faster than before . I don't have much to say except that I find it to be a great pleasure and an honor to be able to participate ( or just lurk ) in a mail list such as this in which the founders,movers and shakers of the Smalltalk movement regularly chime in ! Thanks to Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls in particular. Not to get too mushy here, but you guys SqueakCentral are heroes to me ! I used to test for Asymetrix ( Now Click2learn.Inc.) , maker of Toolbook if anyone out there knows of it. I used to tell my co-workers about Squeak and lobbied to get them to use it for a commercial project but to no avail . Toolbook is in it's own way kind of similar to Smalltalk ,but Squeak is several orders of magnitude more flexible . Last thing I want to say , I would like to create a simulation of a spider building an orb web ( kind of Halloweeny I guess) in Morphic. Can anyone give me a pointer as to how I should do this ? I just want it to be an etoy type animation . Thanks folks ! - Russ Van Rooy

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