Beginners December 2006

beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org

51 participants
45 discussions

Squeak 3.9, general, where do I start?
by Grant Rettke 10 Dec '06

10 Dec '06

Hi folks, I'm at ground zero with Squeak. I've got plenty of experience with languages other than Smalltalk. I did go through the excellent Dolphin Smalltalk tutorial, so I don't feel that in the dark when it comes to Smalltalk. However, I'm really at a loss for grokking the Smalltalk IDE paradigm. Where do I start? What are some of the great things I can use? Today I clicked around in the system browser and learned a lot. How to look up senders or view the inheritance hierarchy, for example. That is cool to learn it myself but I would love to read about it rather than discovering it on my own. Regards, Griff

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Squeak 3.9, general, configuring a "white-on-black" environment?
by Grant Rettke 10 Dec '06

10 Dec '06

Hi folks, I like to view white on black text for source code, the system browser, transcript, and workspace. How can you configure the environment in this manner? Regards, Griff

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Newbie: Error Checking in Dynamically typed Language
by Aditya Siram 10 Dec '06

10 Dec '06

Hi all, This is my first time working with a dynamically typed environment and my first instinct is to error check all arguments. For example suppose I want to create an object to represent an octet in an IP address (a number between 0 and 256) I would do something like this: Object subclass: #Octet instanceVariables: 'octetValue' ...... initialize super initialize. octetValue := 0. setOctetValue: numBtw0And256 octetValue = numBtw0And256 <-------Here's where I have a problem How do I know the numBtw0And256 is actually an integer between 0 and 256 and not 'cat' or '3.14'? Since I came from statically typed languages I feel like I writing a whole bunch of error checking code along the lines of ifIsInteger: ... etc which doesn't seem to be in the spirit of Squeak. What am I doing wrong? Thanks Deech _________________________________________________________________ WIN up to $10,000 in cash or prizes enter the Microsoft Office Live Sweepstakes http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/aub0050001581mrt/direct/01/

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RE: Newbie: Error Checking in Dynamically typed Language
by Jerome Peace 10 Dec '06

10 Dec '06

>[Newbies] Newbie: Error Checking in Dynamically typed Language >Aditya Siram aditya_siram at hotmail.com >Sun Dec 10 03:22:09 UTC 2006 wrote: >Hi all, >This is my first time working with a dynamically typed environment and my >first instinct is to error check all arguments. For example suppose I want >to create an object to represent an octet in an IP address (a number between >0 and 256) I would do something like this: > >Object subclass: #Octet > instanceVariables: 'octetValue' > ...... > >initialize > super initialize. > octetValue := 0. > >setOctetValue: numBtw0And256 > octetValue = numBtw0And256 <-------Here's where I have a problem > >How do I know the numBtw0And256 is actually an integer between 0 and 256 and >not 'cat' or '3.14'? Octet>>setOctetValue: numBtw0And256 (self isOctet: numBtw0And256 ) ifTrue: [ octetValue := numBtw0And256 ] ifFalse: [ self error: 'ooch, ouch, eeach, ' , numBtw0And256 printString , ' was supposed to be an octet and it was not.' ] Octet>>isOctet: anOctet "True iff rcvr is an octet value anOctet isInteger ifFalse: [^false ] ^(anOctet min: 256 max: 0 ) = anOctet alternately you can define isOctet in two places Object>>isOctet "False for anything but a small integer" ^false SmallInteger>>isOctet isOctet "True iff rcvr is an octet value ^(self min: 256 max: 0 ) = self and replace the predicate (self isOctet: numBtw0And256 ) with: numBtw0And256 isOctet > >Since I came from statically typed languages I feel like I writing a whole >bunch of error checking code along the lines of ifIsInteger: ... etc which >doesn't seem to be in the spirit of Squeak. If you don't know where your data is coming from it is good to check it. Especialy as you write new stuff. You want errors to point to themselves early. Later in refactoring you can weed out redundant test if you need to get back the speed. Squeak has had a lot of cowboys who code up stuff w/o checking or taking small steps. Squeak has a lot of bugs introduced from letting that code in. Don't let the spirit of squeak mislead you. Good programing practices are good programming practices. Yours in service, -- Jerome Peace ____________________________________________________________________________________ Have a burning question? Go to www.Answers.yahoo.com and get answers from real people who know.

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method documentation
by Petr Fischer 08 Dec '06

08 Dec '06

Hi, I can get class documentation by method Class>>#comment. How to get a method documentation easily? (I can't focus the right method). Thanks, pf

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Undoing "look like dot"
by Herb Schilling 08 Dec '06

08 Dec '06

Hi, We started teaching Squeak to some high school aged students last week. Several of them used the "look like dot" action after they had spent several minutes creating some cool looking cars. ( They just wanted to see what the action did. ) Needless to say they were not happy that their car really did look like a dot! Is there some way to get back the objects previous "costume"?? Thanks. ----------------------- Herb Schilling hschilling(a)nasa.gov

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Message/Method
by Blake 05 Dec '06

05 Dec '06

I'm not sure whether to ask this here or on the main list, but I thought I'd start here. In a traditional 3GL with objects bolted on, methods are subroutines with a hidden "self" parameter, so if I write (using, oh, Object Pascal): MyObject.MyMethod; I know that MyObject is of a class that has a method (or an ancestor with a method) called MyMethod. I have read things on Smalltalk that suggest to me that: myObject myMethod. the selector "myMethod" does not necessarily map one-to-one with a method named "myMethod". But I haven't been able to figure out how that could be, or under what situation it would be useful. Any thoughts? ===Blake===

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Creating a Browser using Omnibrowser
by Julian Daly 05 Dec '06

05 Dec '06

Hi there, Went through the morph examples, good but I need to be doing this using Omnibrowser. I have information from Alexandre as I am working with him but want to get this by myself first. And actually I would want it to work as both a classes browser and for lists and text panes. But doing this with Omnibrowser. BTW is it ok that I posted this to both lists as this for me is for both as I am beginning and wish to get complex answers not this not simple toplic, Thanks, Julian

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Omnibrowser
by Julian Daly 04 Dec '06

04 Dec '06

Hi there again, How should I start in creating a new browser? I would like to create a new one just like the system browser. I have followed the morph examples but these are morphs and I am not using Omnibrowser? I want to use Omnibrowser. I can't find any example code for omnibrowser and looking at the code does not help. Thanks, Julian

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Building Firefox or Gecko into Squeak
by andy.burnett＠knowinnovation.com 04 Dec '06

04 Dec '06

I think this should probably be filed under "don't' hold your breath" I find that I am doing more and more of my work in Firefox. And, I would love to be able to write apps in smalltalk which take advantage of Gecko's rending abilities. Is anyone working on combining the two? Or, if not, are there any plans to produce a better web browser within Squeak? It doesn't have to be Gecko based, it is just that it is a nice engine. Thanks AB

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Beginners December 2006