Squeak-dev July 2008

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136 participants
183 discussions

Re: [squeak-dev] Different squeak-dev flavors 2
by Damien Cassou 06 Jul '08

06 Jul '08

On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 11:31 PM, Ken G. Brown <kbrown(a)mac.com> wrote: > > At 5:00 AM -0700 7/4/08, squeak-dev-request(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org apparently wrote: >>Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 13:49:21 +0200 >>From: "Damien Cassou" <damien.cassou(a)gmail.com> >>Subject: [squeak-dev] Different squeak-dev flavors 2 >>To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list" >> <squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org> >>Message-ID: >> <6ac749c10807040449i74a6105etda14986d34599096(a)mail.gmail.com> >>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 >> >>Hi again, >> >>the discussions on the other thread are interesting but you forgot to >>answer my questions. I would like to know what are the different >>flavors you want to see in the future? >> >>Two polls are available to help me. >> >>Base squeak-dev images >>http://www.doodle.ch/5u67s53greapfdu6 >> >>Squeak-dev beta packages: >>http://www.doodle.ch/9y9r6nr2imci8g38 >> >>Please also comment on your votes. Doodle allows you to write comments. >> >>On Monday, I will try to make a proposal based on your votes and comments. >> >>-- >>Damien Cassou >>Peter von der AhÈ: ´I'm beginning to see why Gilad wished us good >>luckª. (http://blogs.sun.com/ahe/entry/override_snafu) > > I'd like to see the stuff added to the basic 3.10.2 to make the dev version include all their tests, and have all tests green. What are you talking about? I already base the squeak-dev image on 3.10.2. -- Damien Cassou Peter von der Ahé: «I'm beginning to see why Gilad wished us good luck». (http://blogs.sun.com/ahe/entry/override_snafu)

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Bug in Method Finder dating from 3.8
by Damien Cassou 06 Jul '08

06 Jul '08

On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 9:53 AM, Serge Stinckwich <Serge.Stinckwich(a)gmail.com> wrote: > There is a bug with the Method finder tool. Try for example : 1. 1. 2. > It runs forever ... Try the same thing in any base Squeak image starting from Squeak 3.8. It seems you found a long-standing bug. -- Damien Cassou Peter von der Ahé: «I'm beginning to see why Gilad wished us good luck». (http://blogs.sun.com/ahe/entry/override_snafu)

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help us announce esug08
by Mathieu van Echtelt 05 Jul '08

05 Jul '08

Hi all, We made an email to inform potential enthusiasts about Esug'08. (looking at the program, we think esug'08 will become very interesting) If you know any person/mailinglist/blog you would like to inform too, feel free and use the Esug-announcement email below. (One is in English, the other is in Dutch) We already had some success, e.g. the dutch rubyonrails community has put our announcement on their website: www.rubyenrails.nl, with their own introductoin: "...if you want to see the much discussed Maglev VM or the legendary seaside framework, go to..." These lists/groups already received an email from us: - EAPLS - IvI (UvA) - cwi-all - IPA list - se-world - University Delft - Holland open source - Meta-user list - Viewpoints FONC - Rubyenrails.nl - Xp-nl list - Squeak list - Weekly Squeak - VisualWork NC list - University Twente Thanks, Mathieu van Echtelt Tijs van der Storm (local esug08 organizers) English version: ---- [Apologies for multiple copies] Dear software engineer, End of August, a unique conference will take place in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This conference is organized by the European Smalltalk User Group (ESUG). Smalltalk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk) is a dynamic and reflective language exercising a continuing influence on historic and current developments in programming languages and software technology. This year celebrates the 16th edition of the ESUG conference, which features more than 40 presentations on, among others, the following subjects: Programming Language Platforms: - Newspeak (New open source dynamic language focusing on modularity, security and interoperability) - Cog (New highly optimized open source Squeak VM) - Maglev (Highly scalable Ruby VM) - OpenCroquet (Deeply collaborative, multi-user online Smalltalk development environment) Web Frameworks: - Seaside (The continuation & component-based web framework) - WebVelocity - AidaWeb (Smalltalk Web Application Server) - WebTerminal Model Driven Engineering: - The Meta Environment Language Workbench - ObjectStudio ModelingTool - Fame; Meta-modeling Framework - MBA Smalltalk; to manage your objects Additionally, the winners of the ABN Amro sponsored Innovation Awards will be presented. Are you interested in the latest developments in dynamic languages and Web development, be sure to register as soon as possible at http://www.esug.org. Important information: Conference website: http://www.esug.org/conferences/16thinternationalsmalltalkjointconference20… Time: Augustus 25-29, 2008 Venue: Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI), Kruislaan 413, Amsterdam, Turing Zaal. Directions: http://www.cwi.nl/about/directions.html Hope to see you at ESUG'08! Kind regards [put your name here] Dutch Version: --- (excuses voor meervoudige kopieen) Beste software engineer, Eind augustus vind er unieke conferentie plaats in Amsterdam. Deze wordt georganiseerd door de Europese Smalltalk gebruikersgroep (ESUG). Smalltalk (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk) is een dynamische en reflexieve programmeertaal met een groot verleden en veel invloed op de huidige en toekomstige ontwikkeling van programmeertalen en technologien. Dit jaar is alweer de 16e ESUG conferentie en zullen er ruim 40 presentaties zijn met onder andere de volgende onderwerpen: Programming language platforms: - Newspeak (New open source dynamic language focusing on modularity, security and interoperability) - Cog (New highly optimized open source Squeak VM) - Maglev (Highly scalable Ruby VM) - OpenCroquet (Deeply collaborative, multi-user online Smalltalk development environment) Web Frameworks: - Seaside (The continuation & component-based web framework) - WebVelocity - AidaWeb (Smalltalk Web Application Server) - WebTerminal Model Driven Engineering: - The Meta Environment Language Workbench - ObjectStudio ModelingTool - Fame; Meta-modeling Framework - MBA Smalltalk; to manage your objects Ook zullen er Innovation Awards worden uitgereikt (gesponsord door de ABN Amro). Ben je geinteresseerd in de laatste ontwikkelingen van dynamische programmeertalen en webdevelopment, schrijf je dan zo snel mogelijk in op http://www.esug.org. Belangrijk informatie: Conferentie website: http://www.esug.org/conferences/16thinternationalsmalltalkjointconference20… Wanneer: Augustus 25-29, 2008 Waar: Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI), Kruislaan 413, Amsterdam, Turing Zaal. Routebeschrijving zie: http://www.cwi.nl/about/directions.html Hopelijk tot ziens op ESUG'08! Vriendelijke groet, [put your name here] -- AG5 - Product manager

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Re: [squeak-dev] Prepare for Thousands of Cores --- oh my Chip - it's full of cores!
by Igor Stasenko 05 Jul '08

05 Jul '08

2008/7/5 Jecel Assumpcao Jr <jecel(a)merlintec.com>: > I am sorry to keep repeating myself, but we will be ready before they > are. See this old picture of a Smalltalk machine with 1024 processors: > > http://cva.stanford.edu/projects/j-machine/ > > Intel and Microsoft may have forgotten these lessons, but some of us > haven't. And having them cough up $20M for a joint research project in > multi-core software doesn't impress me very much. I bet just the coffee > budget at either of these companies is a lot larger than that. > I can't remember that Microsoft did any research which changed the shape of computing world. The only thing which they do best is buying out successful product/company, putting Micro$oft flag on top of it, and making money from selling it :) > -- Jecel > > -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

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[JSqueak][ANN] Potato aka JSqueak Repository
by Robert Krahn 05 Jul '08

05 Jul '08

Hi! We recently created a SVN repository for our extended version of JSqueak. This version is named Potato (like the original VM) and includes a lot of improvements: - support for 32 bit color depth - calling Java (in the moment only for strings and integers) - refactored code - consistent use of Java libraries - removed redundancy - added a dynamic object table (for loading big images) - support for little and big endianness - loading of unzipped images - fixed lots of bugs and improved usability. Potato is available here: SVN repository: https://potatovm.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/potatovm Sourceforge project: http://sourceforge.net/projects/potatovm/ We plan further improvements like: - adding support for 8 and 16 bit color depth - implementing BitBlt warp functionality - enhancing BitBlt implementation ("tryCopyingBitsQuickly", blending) - adding save image functionality - implementing additional primitives - being able to support current images - extending Java access - finding and removing bugs. You are welcome to participate! Best regards, Frank Feinbube, Robert Wierschke, Robert Krahn

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CorruptVM slang (Was: Re: [squeak-dev] Anyone know the following about Slang?)
by Igor Stasenko 05 Jul '08

05 Jul '08

2008/7/5 tim Rowledge <tim(a)rowledge.org>: > > On 4-Jul-08, at 6:35 AM, Eliot Miranda wrote: >> >> [snip] >> Thanks Tim! That's what I needed. Being pointed to the right place. It >> has taken 20 minutes to understand the code and 20 minutes to fix it. >> Thanks so much!! > > Nice to have actually achieved something this week; it's been one of those > weeks... > > Simulating simulating the VM to gather type data seems like a pretty complex > project. I can't help feeling it would be simpler and faster to simply write > the VM cleanly, with decent documentation and specs. > > Igor, if you can produce a Better Slang With Lambas, do please share the > code. There has to be some way of cleaning up the current mess. > It is already done. :) The native methods which fully replacing primitives in CorruptVM having special syntax. Here an example of <native> method in CorruptVM: lookup: selector <native> <variable: #delegate knownAs: #VTable> <variable: #vec knownAs: #Vector> <variable: #assoc knownAs: #Association> | vec delegate | delegate := self. delegate equal: nil whileFalse: [ vec := delegate bindings. 1 to: vec size do: [:i | | assoc | assoc := vec at: i. assoc key equal: selector ifTrue: [ ^ assoc value ] ]. delegate := delegate delegate. ]. ^ nil A <native> pragma tells compiler to switch to different logic. A logic is simple: any variables and values is a machine words (32/64/arbirary bit ints), messages like + , - , * , / , bit shifts are pointer arithmetic , and they behave exactly like corresponding CPU instructions. Blocks not allowed in syntax except some special messages, like: #equal:whileTrue: , #equal:ifTrue: , and variants (replace 'equal' with 'greater', 'less' etc) simply translated to branching instructions. To read memory you simply write: memValue := someAddressValue readWord. "there is also a #readByte" to write, you type: someAddressValue writeWord: value But if you look at method example, it looks quite similar to regular smalltalk. Its because it using a static inlining. A principle is simple: whenever compiler sees a message send, and its not a special message (selector not found in CVSpecialMessages class), then compiler does a method lookup and inlines found method. Pragmas, like: <variable: #vec knownAs: #Vector> helping compiler with hints, where it should look for message implementation. In example above , i sending #at: to 'vec' variable. In result compiler inlines #at: method either in Vector class or its parent. If class of variable not specified, then by default its class assumed ProtoObject. If implementation not found - then compiler raising a compile error. You can't recursively inline same method. There are simple check which throws an error when you trying this. Messages to thisContext is treated as messages to compiler itself, and therefore can be uses a preprocessing directives. For instance , i found quite useful a following directive (or call it macro): thisContext ifInlined: [ ... ] ifNotInlined: [ .. ]. With this, i can determine if current method are compiled for inlining or for call from smalltalk and provide different implementation for both cases. An example is tagging small integers: a method #size, returns a size of array. When inlinined, it returns a number of array elements in machine word representation, when called from smalltalk - it returns a small integer. This allows to avoid excessive tagging/detagging in many places. So, what about it in essence: - with native methods you can provide implementation of any low-level basic behavior. - things are quite simple and you write code very similar to regular smalltalk, with exception that you need to keep in mind, that all message sends in native method either inlined or special low-level messages. So, in future system, you can write a package which contains smalltalk code, and native code both. You don't need plugins or something else external to make any code working just after it loaded into image. Imagine a BitBlt package which contains everything in one place. Once you load it - you got bitblt, and you don't need to care about compiling/downloading plugins. As for translation to C: its really easy to write such. You basically need to write a lambda transformation which transforms them to C code. This is quite straightforward, once you got a low-level lambdas. Simulation: it took me about 2 hours to implement a basic CVCPUSimulator. It is really dumb and you don't find any complex logic in it. -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

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Bug Reports Review
by Keith Hodges 05 Jul '08

05 Jul '08

Here is the beginning of a review of fixes on mantis. a starter for 10 best regards Keith* ============ Category: [Squeak Packages] XML-Yaxo * Can be closed 3083, 3082, 928, 547* Category: [Squeak Packages] WriteBarrier *1020 Issue status is open, but I think it is fixed, (Chris Muller?) * Category: [Squeak Packages] Whisker *1474, one outstanding bug which "Doug Way" <dway(a)mailcan.com> said would be fixed in next version i.e 1.2. I see 1.2 on SqueakMap so is it fixed. (Doug?) *Category: [Squeak Packages] VBRegex * 1597, is fixed in 3.9+ , and earlier images with LevelPlayingField loaded 1573, 1691, 1841, 5391 The rest of the VBRegex reports have fairly uncertain status, (does anyone care?) *Category: [Squeak Packages] Universes* 908, 6651, - can be closed. 6495==6679 - seems to be related to Http downloads not giving sensible error results (is there another report for this issue somewhere) 6680 Only version 1.0 of whisker browser appears to be listed in 3.10 Universes, when 1.2 is needed (Lex?) 0006614: Swazoo-HTTP version 7 does not load Is this resolved now? *Category: [Squeak Packages] UIEnhancements * 6788,6880,6930,6932 Can all be closed * Category: [Squeak Packages] SqueakSource *3952: RSS feed does not handle $< or $> in MCZ version description Can this be closed? * Category: [Squeak Packages] Squeak-Dev *6423: DNU spawnHierarchy on OBSystemBrowserAdaptor in squeak-dev 107 - Is this sorted? Can it be closed? *Category: [Squeak Packages] SmallDEVS* 6618 - states that this should be fixed when 6625 is fixed, and 6625 is now closed, so can this be closed also. * Category: [Squeak Packages] Shout* 625 - very old report, could not be reproduced, can this be closed? 1677 - another old report - status update anyone? 3171 - has a fix attached - status update anyone? * Category: [Squeak Packages] Seaside* Has 40 fixes marked resolved can these be closed. Have the Seaside guys moved their open bugs elsewhere now? Or are they still relevant in Mantis

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Smalltalk philosophy
by itgiawa 05 Jul '08

05 Jul '08

I'm not sure where the best place to ask this is so if you can redirect me that would be great. Lets say instead of an operating system and applications all we ran was smalltalk. What are some of the benefits that we would have and disadvantages? Pros: * There would be a common interface between EVERYTHING. So now if I wanted to make changes to a GUI I could do that. The only way to do this in OS X or windows is with messy hacks. * Less dependency on standards like XML or HTTP. Instead of everyone having to learn standards you just build an object and talk to that. Cons: * There would still be some sense of "platform dependency." Even though there is no "operating system" we still have a collection of objects that preform the tasks of an OS like memory management and cpu scheduling. * Scaling. Would this be as hard to scale as a giant c/java program? What else can you guys think of? -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Smalltalk-philosophy-tp18270563p18270563.html Sent from the Squeak - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Re: [squeak-dev] Perl is to CPAN as Squeak is to (what)?
by Claus Kick 05 Jul '08

05 Jul '08

> > The absence of something like STORE/CPAN that is what is driving me > > towards CST. > > > > The existence of CPAN is keeping me with Perl ;) > The existence of sake/packages to enable me to consistently build and > debug the building of the production image that I want is helping to > keep me sane! (after attempting to achieve what I needed with Universes > drove me mad for a couple of weeks) > > The last thing we need is yet another package management system, when we > have hardly started using the features of the existing ones. I do not think there is need for another package management system, I just think that there should be an agreement on using and expanding _one_, incorporating what is best about all the others. I realize that means stepping on many, many toes and legs and probably even heads, but I think things need to be streamlined a bit. If push comes to shove, I would even say, lets ditch them all and just use SVN like the rest of the planet (if that is possible). It is hard enough to sell a image-based language with a real IDE to the C-style crowd, the package management systems should not add their grain of salt to the soup. -- Claus Kick "Wenn Sie mich suchen: Ich halte mich in der Nähe des Wahnsinns auf. Genauer gesagt auf der schmalen Linie zwischen Wahnsinn und Panik. Gleich um die Ecke von Todesangst, nicht weit weg von Irrwitz und Idiotie." "If you are looking for me: I am somewhere near to lunacy. More clearly, on the narrow path between lunacy and panic. Right around the corner of fear of death, not far away from idiotism and insanity."

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little VM fast-up : #bytesSwapped:
by nicolas cellier 04 Jul '08

04 Jul '08

Hello VM gods, every little improvment counts, so my 2 pennies: Interpreter>>byteSwapped: w "Answer the given integer with its bytes in the reverse order." BytesPerWord = 4 ifTrue: [^((w bitShift: Byte3ShiftNegated) bitAnd: Byte0Mask) + ((w bitShift: Byte1ShiftNegated) bitAnd: Byte1Mask) + ((w bitShift: Byte1Shift ) bitAnd: Byte2Mask) + ((w bitShift: Byte3Shift ) bitAnd: Byte3Mask)] ifFalse: [^((w bitShift: Byte7ShiftNegated) bitAnd: Byte0Mask) + ((w bitShift: Byte5ShiftNegated) bitAnd: Byte1Mask) + ((w bitShift: Byte3ShiftNegated) bitAnd: Byte2Mask) + ((w bitShift: Byte1ShiftNegated) bitAnd: Byte3Mask) + ((w bitShift: Byte1Shift ) bitAnd: Byte4Mask) + ((w bitShift: Byte3Shift ) bitAnd: Byte5Mask) + ((w bitShift: Byte5Shift ) bitAnd: Byte6Mask) + ((w bitShift: Byte7Shift ) bitAnd: Byte7Mask)] Can be written with less operations with the classical: byteSwapped: w | x | x := w. BytesPerWord = 4 ifTrue: [ "Note: In C, x unsigned 64 bits, first bitAnd: is not required" x = ((x bitAnd: 16rFFFF0000 >> 16) + ((x bitAnd: 16r0000FFFF << 16). x = ((x bitAnd: 16rFF00FF00 >> 8) + ((x bitAnd: 16r00FF00FF << 8)] ifFalse: [ "Note: In C, x unsigned 64 bits, first bitAnd: is not required" x = ((x bitAnd: 16rFFFFFFFF00000000 >> 32) + ((x bitAnd: 16r00000000FFFFFFFF << 32). x = ((x bitAnd: 16rFFFF0000FFFF0000 >> 16) + ((x bitAnd: 16r0000FFFF0000FFFF << 16). x = ((x bitAnd: 16rFF00FF00FF00FF00 >> 8) + ((x bitAnd: 16r00FF00FF00FF00FF << 8)]. ^x Yeah, the cost is (BytesPerWord log: 2). Of course, you can use named constants, with proper unsigned long declarations, that's a detail i let you deal with. Nicolas

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