Squeak-dev October 2011

squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

47 participants
160 discussions

Trying to build SerialPlugin for IrDA under MPW (MacOS 8.6)
by Hans-Martin Mosner 24 May '12

24 May '12

Hi, I recently got a serial IrDA adapter and wanted to play around with it under Squeak. This adapter has a baudrate switching mechanism which depends on toggling the DTR and RTS lines in the correct sequence. To support this, I wanted to build a new SerialPlugin with an additional primitive. However, the plugin as built with MPW does not seem to be accepted by the VM, which still uses the internal plugin in all cases. I've tried placing the plugin in a 'Plugins' subfolder of the VM's folder, and then directly into the VM folder, without any success. I have considered placing debug outputs in appropriate places in the VM, but building a complete VM with MPW is not easy - I would have to create an MPW makefile for the whole shebang, which is more work than I can invest at the moment. Does any of you Mac aficionados have an idea where the problem could be? I have appended the plugin and corresponding source files in a ZIP file (it's not big) so if you want to try it out you could do it right now :-) BTW, would it make sense to incorporate support for switching serial port parameters of an open port into the standard plugin? Closing and opening a port just to change the baud rate seems a little overkill... Cheers, Hans-Martin

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Looking for Gjallar
by Edgar J. De Cleene 28 Mar '12

28 Mar '12

Folks Navigating from http://swiki.krampe.se/gjallar seems the project is non working No downloads No lists Any help ? Edgar

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Smalltalk Implementation of the Viable System Model
by Robert Carleton 09 Mar '12

09 Mar '12

I've been slowly piecing together an implementation of what is called the Viable System Model, or VSM. The model was developed by operations research theorist and cybernetician Stafford Beer in the early 70's. One of the best known projects to use the VSM was an attempted real-time computer-controlled planned economy in the years 1970 to 1973. It was called Project Cybersyn. The system used a telex network and applications running on an IBM 360 computer. I've been working on a Smalltalk implementation of the model, that I'm calling the Viable System Agent. It's come far enough along, that I think it is ready to show. There is a small web page for the project: http://home.rbcarleton.com/rbc/software/smalltalk/VSA/ There is a presentation, along with file outs of the present code. See the unit tests for how it might be used. I have to add that it is just a beginning. If you have previously seen Beers ideas in operations research and cybernetics, you might find it interesting. Best, --Bruce

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Fork Proposal: Cuis & Killer Apps.
by Overcomer Man 04 Mar '12

04 Mar '12

I suggest a new fork or possibly a new orientation for the next Squeak release: Adopt Cuis as the core image and focus on killer applications to attract new Smalltalk users. Thousands of downloads are recorded on CNet for simple apps like a voice recorder. They could all be using and learning Smalltalk. Same for many other applications. That would help make Smalltalk popular again. Recently I found Squeak / Cuis contains many Sound classes. So I wrote up an email suggesting it to a community college teacher friend who had asked for a sound recorder. Imagine my embarrassment when I found the files Squeak supports doesn't include .mp3. Squeak has so much unfinished half starts at programs, why not adopt Juan's work to flush the unnecessary, then get started on building a serious applications team to build truly useful free code. Another example, Roxio is a million dollar software company making a video recorder app. which is not as good as an ordinary VCR and not supported (they have a staff but try getting any real help). Squeak could be capturing a slice of that market and enticing users to learn Smalltalk! And source code can substitute for most support. Another example, Solid Works is a 3D object drafting program that is simple and gets many thousands of users away from AutoDesk. Can Smalltalk deliver most or all of that function with a FFI to openGL and some programming? Certianly! Finally, the one complaint I've heard on the job about Smalltalk is it's slow. I recently added several thousand classes and find simply clicking on the class in a browser is now slow to respond. When end-users, not programmers, can type at 80 words a minute and more in a C app. or they can be limited to 30 wpm or less in a Smalltalk app. they demand C. The new VM was a good improvement, now try to solve the speed issues in the image. Thanks, Kirk Fraser

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Smalltalk v. .mcz Objects
by Overcomer Man 18 Feb '12

18 Feb '12

>> Along the way I noticed the .mcz files contained a lot of other junk besides Smalltalk code, and all the code for several FFI sub-projects is under the same filename inside the different packages. Using .mcz instead of .zip is unnecessary complexity. The extra packaged files are not Smalltalk. Why not just use Smalltalk? > Why use text when you can use objects? What you call "junk" is in fact just serialized objects. Loading them is a lot more efficient than compiling text. The stored text is just a fallback. When loading the text, MC actually just recreates the objects (MCDefinition instances), and then proceeds exactly the same way as if it had loaded the serialized definitions in the first place. > > - Bert - The obvious error with that is that other versions of Smalltalk exist. People with completely different Smalltalks which do not all have Monticello, as well as different forks of Squeak like Cuis should be given equal access to libraries of Smalltalk code. Second there is the completely unnecessary use of the .mcz instead of .zip extension, making it more inaccessible until one is given the simple conversion. Third, it is not obvious that a person with an older version of Squeak, with years of personal new code added, will have compatibility with a binary object, or be able to update the code if needed, from a binary form. Compile speed is inconsequential to the speed of locating a potentially valuable project in the library. Thus Monticello as currently defined is a hindrance to the greater Smalltalk community and unnecessary to Squeak.

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How Moprhs is rendered
by Hilaire Fernandes 24 Jan '12

24 Jan '12

To optimise the DrGeo canvas (get it faster), I try to understand in detail how is done the rendering of Morphs embedded in a pasteupmorph. I did not find any detailed information on the Internet about that. Any pointer? Right now, DrGeo canvas is a pasteUpMorph, the line, segment, point, circle, etc. are all Morph added in the pasteUpMoprh. When the model of a geometry sketch is updated, then all the Morphs view are updated in one shot (it appeared to be faster than to climb the model tree to update only the morphs needing update) Hilaire -- Education 0.2 -- http://blog.ofset.org/hilaire

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History of ObjectsAsMethods?
by Yoshiki Ohshima 19 Dec '11

19 Dec '11

Hello, I used ObjectsAsMethods feature for something by myself first time yesterday. It is used as a per-method basis dNU: override but much cleaner. I chatted with my colleagues about the origin of its idea and implementation. Does this trace back to an implementation Andreas did 10 years ago, or is this something else came from Europe? -- Yoshiki

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OpenGL in 4.1 or later?
by Lawson English 19 Dec '11

19 Dec '11

has anyone besides Matt Fulmer attempted to get OpenGL working with 4.1, 4.2, or 4.3? Lawson

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Squeak on Google Native Client
by Chris Cunnington 11 Nov '11

11 Nov '11

That's pretty cool. I entered about:flags in the address bar and changed the NativeClient setting to enable. Then I did it for about:plugins. I came back, hit the link, and it said the plugin was not allowed. After flopping around lots of NaCl docs, I managed to make it work by downloading a demo called Ogre, which deposited 50M of stuff on my computer. It's available here: http://www.gonacl.com/dev/demos.html Then I closed and opened Chrome. The flags stayed set and the link ran. Oh, yea. One more thing: wait. It may take a few seconds to appear. It's very cool. I like the bridge a lot. If I recall correctly the Squeak plugin didn't interact with the outside world in any way. What's the story on the PepperPlugin I see referred to in NativeClientBrdige>>#handleMessage? How did you make that? Chris

5 6

readFrom: vs readFromString:
by Nicolas Cellier 01 Nov '11

01 Nov '11

There is a huge mess in #readFrom: implementation. Some classes will signal trailing characters as a bug, some other won't and will simply leave the stream positioned after the valid part. I propose to change this behaviour uniformly: - readFrom: aStream will never fail on trailing chars (hey, it's a stream, it's up to sender to interpret the tail) - readFromString: aString will always forbid trailing char (it's not a stream, so this garbage is most probably an error and cannot be ignored silently) What do you think ? Nicolas

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