Squeak-dev August 2007

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132 participants
163 discussions

proposed agreement with the Software Freedom Conservancy
by Craig Latta 15 Aug '07

15 Aug '07

Hi all-- Following a suggestion from Ron Teitelbaum, the elected Squeak leadership is considering making Squeak a member project in the Software Freedom Law Center's Software Freedom Conservancy[1, 2]. Here's the Conservancy's description of themselves from their website: *** The Software Freedom Conservancy is an organization composed of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects. As a fiscal sponsor for FOSS projects, the Conservancy provides member projects with free financial and administrative services, but does not involve itself with technological and artistic decisions. By joining the Conservancy, member FOSS projects obtain the benefits of a formal legal structure while keeping themselves focused on software development. These benefits include, most notably, protection from personal liability for project developers. Another benefit of joining the Conservancy is that projects can use it to hold assets, which are managed by the Conservancy on behalf of and at the direction of the project. The Conservancy is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, so member projects can receive tax-deductible donations to the extent allowed by law. *** Our discussions with them have gone very well, and we now have a proposed membership agreement (for now, at [3]). The Squeak leadership is unanimously in favor of it. Please read this agreement and voice any concerns with it here on squeak-dev. We currently plan to take action on 15 August 2007. thanks! -C [1] http://www.softwarefreedom.org [2] http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org [3] http://netjam.org/squeak/SqueakSponsorshipAgreement.pdf -- Craig Latta improvisational musical informaticist www.netjam.org Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]

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Identity vs equality (was Re: [Newbies] Assignment)
by Göran Krampe 14 Aug '07

14 Aug '07

Hi! (cc to squeak-dev) >> All the character is unique so is better (faster) to use #==. > > This is not true for Characters whose code is bigger than 256. > > To me, the identity comparison is more or less in the "meta" level > or touching implementation details. Unless you eally need to check > the "identity" for a good reason, you should always use #= for > comparison, I think. (Some performance critical potion of code could > be exempted... but it should still be limited very carefully.) > > -- Yoshiki Just wanted to mention that this came up on IRC the other day and IMHO one can generally go by this rule - use #= for equality and only use #== if you actually *intend* to check for identity. It is slightly poor style to use #== just to gain a bit of speed, when you in fact *mean* equality. If we generalise the rule is - program by intention as much as possible and instead focus on Compiler and friends for speed tricks. :) It might be interesting to hear what Bryce thinks about this - could for example Exupery get "tricked" by using #== when you actually mean #= and actually end up making slower code than if the developer had used #=? In this particular case it may very well be so that identity checks are faster than any conceivable equality check - but who knows. :) regards, Göran PS. Sure, I have also broken this rule, no doubt about that. ;)

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[ANN] SIXX 0.2c is available on all major Smalltalk dialects
by Masashi UMEZAWA 14 Aug '07

14 Aug '07

Hi all, I've updated SIXX to 0.2c. A new hook #sixxReferenceIdInContext: is useful for comparing SIXX files by usual diff tools. <<New Features in 0.2c>> - Fraction serialization/deserialization support. - SixxReadStream can read no-root-tag sixx format. - Added a new option "SixxSettings>>useReducedTags" If this option is on, RIXX (Reduced SIXX) will be generated. - Bug fix of ShapeChanger - Added a hook "Object>>sixxReferenceIdInContext:" By overriding this method, you can use your domain object's id in SIXX. <<Download>> - Squeak - SqueakMap - ftp://swikis.ddo.jp/SIXX/squeak/SIXX20070812.sar - VisualWorks - Cincom Public Store Repository - ftp://swikis.ddo.jp/SIXX/vw/SIXX-VW0.2-20070812.zip - Dolphin Smalltalk - ftp://swikis.ddo.jp/SIXX/dolphin/SIXX0.2-Dolphin20070812.zip About SIXX: http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~umejava/smalltalk/sixx/index.html Other features are listed at: http://swikis.ddo.jp/umejava/40 Enjoy! -- [:masashi | ^umezawa]

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Re: OT: Dolphin smalltalk giving up
by Bill Schwab 13 Aug '07

13 Aug '07

Matthew, Fair enough. I am mostly thinking of my users. Suppose I display a menu, they click in one of the magic spots, and instead of doing something or nothing (which would cause a reflex to click again), it gets attached to the hand. I can hear it now: the menu is "stuck to the mouse". The file/directory picking "dialogs" are not really that at all. They are inconsistent, do not provide a clear way to show/hide hidden files (at least on Linux). As long as Squeak has been in use, it seems that there should be a lot more polish in the interaction with the user. The behavior of input focus is a lot better than it once was, but it is still not consistent. I hate to think about putting a clerk in front of Squeak-based form. If they have to touch the mouse, the software is broken. Why care what clerks think? They enter data that can be turned into serious money, but one has to make life easy for them, or they find ways not to cooperate. It can be hard enough when it is easy. Squeak is starting to show some respect for tabbing, but it is again not consistent. It might be far enough along that one could build something robust for end users. For example, in a deployed app, one would not use a system window; the main window would be app's shell (MDI fans will see it differently of course), and an alignment morph would likely cover the entire world, with the widgets living inside it. I have yet to actually do this, but I can imagine that it would hide many of the IDE's annoyances. One of my favorites is the method finder. Especially with an optical mouse (the kind that moves the cursor even when still), one has to "balance" the cursor in the selector field, lest the focus fly off to some other widget. Workspace menus: the browse-it command should be on the first menu, near inspect, debug-it, and friends. Many other ergonomic annoyances have been posted recently. The Linux vm will shutdown w/o warning. It could do a better job with virtual keys. Some of that is Linux culture, but I notice that other apps respond as expected to keypad vk messages. Again, it is mostly feel: how it reacts to keyboard and mouse input. I am of the opinion that Microsoft is losing their collective grip on reality, but they did some really good usability testing - what, 20 years ago?? Scary. Much of what they learned watching "idiots" interact with computers has become widely adopted. If I am giving them too much credit, I apologize, but there is a mechanical vocabulary of interaction with computers, with a fine line between being responsive and fragile. I argue that Squeak as packaged is in the latter camp. Please note that I am trying to remove a barrier to use of Smalltalk. I believe there is nothing one can do to make the masses leave the sharp-infested waters(TM) for the power and elegance of Smalltalk. However, we can help those who "get it" make their would-be users' life as easy as possible, making it just that much easier to apply Smalltalk. Bill Matthew Fulmer wrote: On Sat, Aug 11, 2007 at 04:20:21PM -0400, Bill Schwab wrote: > At the risk of becoming a broken record: my complaints about the Squeak > GUI are not about look, they are about feel. I can sell funny looking, > but I cannot sell clumsy. Squeak is easy to get used to, so we usually forget what makes it clumsy. The only things I can think of is using the Alt (rather than Ctrl) key for modifiers (on Linux and Windows), and the lack of support for one-click copy/paste (under X11). What else bothers you about it? We are not conspiring to make a clumsy user interface. I got used to the interface after 1 week and never saw it as clumsy. I want to know. Really. What don't you like? Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029

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A lack of productivity is killing Smalltalk.
by Janko Mivšek 13 Aug '07

13 Aug '07

Another one from blogosfere. For our rethinking ... http://pinderkent.blogsavy.com/archives/99 A lack of productivity is killing Smalltalk. I heard today that the development of Dolphin Smalltalk has been discontinued. Although it isn’t a product I used or was familiar with, I have been involved with a number of Smalltalk-based development efforts in the past. While it was somewhat popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the commercial usage of Smalltalk has declined significantly since then. Slava Pestov suggests how poor implementations are leading to the downfall of Smalltalk. I would tend to agree, to some extent. Most Smalltalk implementations really don’t compare to a development platform like Java, or even what Microsoft has put together with C# and .NET. However, I would tend to think that the main reason why Smalltalk has started to really fall out of favor is that it doesn’t bring the level of productivity that it used to, relative to other technologies. Back in the early 1990s, a lot of enterprise-grade software was written using C or C++. For developing complex business applications, Smalltalk often did offer a very significant productivity boost to developers, even if the runtime performance of the applications suffered somewhat. Being at a higher-level, it allowed business rules and concepts to be more easily and effectively represented in the software itself. But that started to change by the mid-1990s. Java arose, and offered many of the benefits that Smalltalk had been offering. That’s not to say that Java, as a language, is comparable to Smalltalk. In many ways it’s quite inferior, even over a decade after its initial release. But it was more familiar to those developers who’d come from the world of C and C++, while also offering OO functionality and garbage collection similar enough to that of Smalltalk. I’ve worked with several excellent Smalltalk developers in the past. A talented, experienced professional can do wonders with Smalltalk. Unfortunately for them, Java and its vast array of classes, class libraries and frameworks have brought a similar level of productivity to only average developers. So if these average developers can churn out an adequate software product at a lower cost than the Smalltalk expert, as has often become the case, then the business will flow towards the Java developers. Unless the Smalltalk developers bring something to the party that drastically increases their productivity (or their software’s productivity) over that put out by Java developers, they won’t have a real chance at survival. -- Janko Mivšek AIDA/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si

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Re: OT: Dolphin smalltalk giving up
by Bill Schwab 12 Aug '07

12 Aug '07

Jason, Jan, Andreas, As you have seen, STX gets mixed reviews, but it has supporters, and I will look again. Thanks! Bill ================ Jason Johnson wrote: Well I just took a look at it and it doesn't look bad. Free, has a GUI builder, it sounded like it had an EXE builder. And besides Strongalk it is the fastest Smalltalk, no? On 8/12/07, Andreas Wacknitz <A.Wacknitz@...> wrote: > Jan Hussaarts wrote: > > Andreas, > > > > If you need recent releases for a specific platform, according to > > their website you can mail Exept . > > I'm not using STX for database access yet, but if necessary I would > > probably try to use ODBC for SQLServer or PostgreSQL. > When I checked the ODBC implementation it didn't worked at all. And the > comments said that only Oracle drivers were > in a somehow supported state as there were only customers using Oracle > databases. > > > > I do not understand what you mean by 'overhaul its tools'? I think it > > is pretty fast, compared to Squeak. > According to the ST/X source comments all tools will be rewritten with > the GUI builder (I don't remember the exact name). > The old tools are hand coded. You can see some of the results in the > configuration dialogs: > the use of some of the newer tools are not yet recommended. > > > Andreas Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029

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Re: OT: Dolphin smalltalk giving up
by Bill Schwab 12 Aug '07

12 Aug '07

Jan, What I wouldn't give for a time machine to buy VW 3.1 :) Actually, probably not, as it is likely getting left in the dust, or is it? STX is a possibility. I am typing on an Ubuntu system that is resurrected from spare parts, well all but the hard disk (500 GB). The machine was suspect, having had a bad memory stick, and then took a few times to get right. I think by random chance, the first drive I put in it failed (actually, it was probably bad before I got it). Ubuntu ran for a while, then started complaining. I put a spare 20GB drive in it, and it ran well, but I wanted more space. Then I had fun with old bios/big drive hassles. Creating a /boot partition did the trick. I mention this because somewhere in there, I tried ST/X, and I cannot say it was bullet proof. You are not the first to suggest it, and it deserves another shot. It might have been zapped by a flaky disk. Finally, there is no secret that some of us are hoping to raise money to buy and open source Dolphin. No word yet on whether OA will go for it, or at what price. Bill ================= Jan Hussaarts wrote: Hi Bill, For a living I program in C# (VS2005) and VisualWorks Smalltalk. The latter in v3.1 because of the pricing of new releases. For fun I use Squeak and Smalltalk/X (from www.exept.de). Both are free to use in commercial projects. Smalltalk/X (STX) is also still kept upto date by Exept. I am thinking of switching from VW Smalltalk to STX; perhaps that is an alternative for you too. STX runs on Windows and Linux, it has a good IDE, supports proper OS-look and feel window-style and can be used for the development of Web applications. Kind regards, Jan Hussaarts Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029

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Re: OT: Dolphin smalltalk giving up
by Bill Schwab 12 Aug '07

12 Aug '07

Brad, I'm sure we did have this conversation. If anyone is in an infinite loop, it's me :) My only disagreement is that I find feel much harder to address that look, or at least look _should_ be relatively trivial. Ideally, it should be pluggable, and one simply draws a little more to obtain a richer look. Feel involves routing of messages, managing focus, etc. IMHO, that is a lot more trouble, is it not?? Regardless of relative difficulties, I would be happy to help with an effort to improve the situation. Bill ============== Brad Fuller wrote: I'm recalling in my old mind that we had similar discussions a while back. We seem to have these conversations every once in a while. Sorry if I repeated myself! On Sat August 11 2007 4:27 pm, Brad Fuller wrote: > Bill, > > I generally agree with you that out-of-the-box, Squeak's feel (and look) > are different than what users are used to. And this is a concern for > deploying applications quickly. We have the unique opportunity to change > most of these "feel" issues to our heart's content. The 'look' is a bit > harder, but can be done, too. > > I don't worry too much about the 'feel' because it's easy to change. > > Having said that, I agree that it would be nice to have a consistent feel > out-of-the-box for Squeak that travels along all of the releases and bug > fixes. > > Maybe we should have a UI team that addresses that issue. That would be one > area that I could help on and would surely join the team. There is > a "Morphic" team, but I don't think they are too active. I wouldn't think > the morphic team addresses the overall concept of Squeak's UI. It may be a > matter of setting some guidelines that can be followed that address we we > collectively agree is the "standard" feel of Squeak. Those guidelines can > be violated, of course, and should be when one wants to go beyond or even > invent a better method (which could then be incorporated into the > guidelines.) But, if developers follow the guidelines, it would keep Squeak > UI consistent. > > Do guidelines, or some such list, exist today? > > brad > > On Sat August 11 2007 3:30 pm, Bill Schwab wrote: > > Matthew, > > > > Fair enough. I am mostly thinking of my users. Suppose I display a > > menu, they click in one of the magic spots, and instead of doing > > something or nothing (which would cause a reflex to click again), it > > gets attached to the hand. I can hear it now: the menu is "stuck to the > > mouse". The file/directory picking "dialogs" are not really that at > > all. They are inconsistent, do not provide a clear way to show/hide > > hidden files (at least on Linux). As long as Squeak has been in use, it > > seems that there should be a lot more polish in the interaction with the > > user. > > > > The behavior of input focus is a lot better than it once was, but it is > > still not consistent. I hate to think about putting a clerk in front of > > Squeak-based form. If they have to touch the mouse, the software is > > broken. Why care what clerks think? They enter data that can be turned > > into serious money, but one has to make life easy for them, or they find > > ways not to cooperate. It can be hard enough when it is easy. Squeak > > is starting to show some respect for tabbing, but it is again not > > consistent. It might be far enough along that one could build something > > robust for end users. For example, in a deployed app, one would not use > > a system window; the main window would be app's shell (MDI fans will see > > it differently of course), and an alignment morph would likely cover the > > entire world, with the widgets living inside it. I have yet to actually > > do this, but I can imagine that it would hide many of the IDE's > > annoyances. > > > > One of my favorites is the method finder. Especially with an optical > > mouse (the kind that moves the cursor even when still), one has to > > "balance" the cursor in the selector field, lest the focus fly off to > > some other widget. > > > > Workspace menus: the browse-it command should be on the first menu, near > > inspect, debug-it, and friends. Many other ergonomic annoyances have > > been posted recently. > > > > The Linux vm will shutdown w/o warning. It could do a better job with > > virtual keys. Some of that is Linux culture, but I notice that other > > apps respond as expected to keypad vk messages. > > > > Again, it is mostly feel: how it reacts to keyboard and mouse input. I > > am of the opinion that Microsoft is losing their collective grip on > > reality, but they did some really good usability testing - what, 20 > > years ago?? Scary. Much of what they learned watching "idiots" > > interact with computers has become widely adopted. If I am giving them > > too much credit, I apologize, but there is a mechanical vocabulary of > > interaction with computers, with a fine line between being responsive > > and fragile. I argue that Squeak as packaged is in the latter camp. > > > > Please note that I am trying to remove a barrier to use of Smalltalk. I > > believe there is nothing one can do to make the masses leave the > > sharp-infested waters(TM) for the power and elegance of Smalltalk. > > However, we can help those who "get it" make their would-be users' life > > as easy as possible, making it just that much easier to apply Smalltalk. > > > > Bill > > > > > > > > > > Matthew Fulmer wrote: > > > > On Sat, Aug 11, 2007 at 04:20:21PM -0400, Bill Schwab wrote: > > > At the risk of becoming a broken record: my complaints about the > > > > Squeak > > > > > GUI are not about look, they are about feel. I can sell funny looking, > > > but I cannot sell clumsy. > > > > Squeak is easy to get used to, so we usually forget what makes > > it clumsy. The only things I can think of is using the Alt > > (rather than Ctrl) key for modifiers (on Linux and Windows), and > > the lack of support for one-click copy/paste (under X11). What > > else bothers you about it? We are not conspiring to make a > > clumsy user interface. I got used to the interface after 1 week > > and never saw it as clumsy. > > > > I want to know. Really. What don't you like? > > > > > > Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. > > University of Florida > > Department of Anesthesiology > > PO Box 100254 > > Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 > > > > Email: bschwab@... > > Tel: (352) 846-1285 > > FAX: (352) 392-7029 Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029

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OT (slightly) - Linux on a MacBookPro
by Brad Fuller 12 Aug '07

12 Aug '07

I apologize if this is OT to some, but I'm wondering if anyone has run a Linux distro on a MacBookPro to run Squeak. I understand that you can run OSX and XP from boot on a Mac, but I'm wondering if you can also have a triple boot to run Linux (not in VMware, etc.) And, if you do, what distro are you using? thanks, brad

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Re: OT: Dolphin smalltalk giving up
by Bill Schwab 11 Aug '07

11 Aug '07

Jason, First, in re-reading, I noted that I failed to mention something: I am not saying that Squeak freezes when networks turn ugly. I simply remember how hard I had to work at it the last time. Given what I am reading about the threading that underlies it, my scepticism is renewed :( Regardless of the state of sockets in the face of adversity (aka reality), Dolphin's overlapped call mechanism is quite useful, and might not be too tough to add. There are many caveats to it, such as undocumented thread affinities, but when it works, it is _really_ nice. I have had very good results with it. At the risk of becoming a broken record: my complaints about the Squeak GUI are not about look, they are about feel. I can sell funny looking, but I cannot sell clumsy. Bill "Jason Johnson" wrote: On 8/11/07, Bill Schwab <BSchwab@...> wrote: > > >From a developer's perspective, it is a tough transition. I can work in > Squeak, but it is a bitter pill compared to Dolphin. From an end-user's > perspective, I fear that Squeak out of the box would cause mutiny. As I > have always said, the GUI feel the problem. I deal with busy users in > sometimes dire circumstances. They cannot be expected to remember > whether they have previously opened a dialog (modality can be a good > thing). I think I would be able to design and build around some of the > limitations. The Dolphin GUI is very very nice to be sure. It's a real shame that it didn't catch on more. For me it would seem like a no brainer for a small company: An easy language to use, a fast development environment. > Tweak scares me a bit. The capability is fine (even great), but I have > reservations about dragging the compiler into it. I would much rather > see a higher level GUI editor that uses a time-aware variant of a > traditional event system for routing. While I am no big fan of native > widgets, I would probably opt for something like wxSqueak to force the > point. After the previous discussion wouldn't direct rendering be a better option? If sig's OpenGL API turns out to be nice maybe that could be used. What is really missing is to have the image be able to open extra native windows. The same kind of base canvas (or what ever you call them) windows as now, just more then one. In a related question, how much can one legally duplicate the look of Windows/Mac, or is there a legal problem there at all? It seems a bit arbitrary to say that you can't make windows that look like native windows, but you can freely call the OS to do it, no? > I am glad to see that Andreas fixed some critical threading bugs. I am > somewhat surprised that it took so long for them to surface. How does > one square that with the popularity of Swikis and other server uses of > Squeak? I would have thought they would stress the VM enough to show > such bugs, but they apparently did not, or worse yet, the community > largely ignored the problems??? Insights would be appreciated. I think this was showing up on the Seaside sites from various people, but it was non-trivial to track down. > I am not sure how to copy with the loss(??) of Dolphin's overlapped > threads. For those not familiar with them, Dolphin provides a way to > mark external functions to be called on a separate OS thread such that > only the calling Smalltalk Process is blocked. With a really good SSL > Socket implementation, I should be able to wean from them. By really > good, I mean that the image cannot hang when a network wire is pulled or > a machine or DNS entry does not exist. The calling process should > block, but not the entire image. I wonder how hard it would be to add this. Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bschwab(a)anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029

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