Inline below.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Sep 7, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Overcomer Man <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:overcomer.man@gmail.com" target="_blank">overcomer.man@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="gmail_quote">I suggest a new fork</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>-1</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote">
or possibly a new orientation for the next Squeak release:<div>Adopt Cuis as the core image and focus on killer applications to attract new Smalltalk users.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>+1. If I was allowed to do +100, you'd have that in a heartbeat:)</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>Thousands of downloads are recorded on CNet for simple apps like a voice recorder.</div>
<div>They could all be using and learning Smalltalk. Same for many other applications. </div><div>That would help make Smalltalk popular again.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>:D I like the way you think!</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>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.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Juan, I think it's time to bring out your synth, my friend! So .mp3 isn't necessarily a deal breaker. MPEG should be convertible to WAV, but FWIW, you're right. Squeak needs a Winamp/XMMS killer. Between this, and a standards-complient web browser (read: nightmarish rabbit-hole) I can practically ditch my operating system and live in Squeakland all the time. Wouldn't that be *radical?*</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>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. </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Worth pointing out: applications which use Morphic will take real work to make run over Cuis. Morphic in Cuis is a whole new breed of animal; fast, lean, beautiful, and completely different from the tangle which many applications expect to find down there.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>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. </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Yes! Redhat sells an open source operating system. We have an operating system that's actually pretty! Why not Mousehat or something (obviously I'm not from marketing)? I dig the entrepreneurial angle, Overcomer Man. I've been thinking about this stuff for years. I dream of a BSD kernel and nothing else but drivers and Squeak. Web browser is still an issue, but it's no problem money can't solve.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>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!</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Have you played with OpenQwaq? It has tools that do some of this stuff in a very natural way. If we can make these parts loadable packages, the whole GPL thing becomes a non-issue for end users. Can't go into the core system, but as a loadable package, everybody wins. I want to see what we can do with a Cintiq graphics tablet, build ourselves a Robot Draftsman. Long live Sketchpad!</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>Finally, the one complaint I've heard on the job about Smalltalk is it's slow. </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Eh... Smalltalk invented fast. Smalltalk's little sister, Self, invented *very fast*. JIT and polymorphic inline caches make this a virtual non-issue. And you can optimize for whatever you want because you control the vertical, you control the horizontal. See also, L Peter Deutsch, David Ungar, Eliot Miranda.</div>
<div> </div><div>We have a fast VM now. This is a non-issue.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>I recently added several thousand classes and find simply clicking on the class in a browser is now slow to respond. </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Hmm. Have you tried using the performance spy to figure out where the bottleneck is? Generally, most programs spend 80% of their time in 20% of their code. A Pareto relationship. There is likely something running which is sending more messages than it needs to be.</div>
<div><br></div><div>How big is that image file, out of curiosity?</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>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.</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Sure, I mean. Cuis?</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="gmail_quote"><div>Thanks,</div>
<div>Kirk Fraser</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Kirk, I really enjoyed your spirited comments. While I *do* think you have some great ideas for new apps, I personally think the best plan is to throw in on making the apps that Smalltalk programmers presently care a great deal for (e.g., Seaside) run atop Cuis. This will take a concerted effort. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Cuis is a lovely little system. I find it the most broadly usable Smalltalk -- certainly better looking than any other (antialiasing goes a long way with rounded window corners, thanks again Juan) -- and I would love so see someone experiment with the combination of Spoon and Cuis (to address Lawson's point.)</div>
<div><br></div><div>Craig, if I wanted to try to Spoon-out Cuis, where would I start?</div>
<div> </div></div>-- <br>Casey Ransberger<br>