Beginners August 2006

beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org

70 participants
71 discussions

what no Smalltalk at OOPSLA2006?
by Bakki Kudva 25 Sep '06

25 Sep '06

[Newbie Perspective] I was looking for tutorials, tracks or just about anything related to Smalltalk, Seaside at Oopsla2006 in Portland on October 22-26. I was disappointed to see that there isn't any Smalltalk related topic - what's up with that? -bakki PS: These are the closest things I could find- Dynamic Languages Symposium (Program/Venues) ...ussion of dynamic languages, their implementation and applications. While mature dynamic languages including Smalltalk, Lisp, Scheme, and Prolog T48: Totally Awesome Computing: Python as a General-Purpose Programming Language (Submission/Tutorials) ...nd their knowledge of the principles of programming languages, since advanced language features (like novel, SmallTalk-like applications of polymorphism) are so easy to teach in Python. Format: The p... ---sad to see that only mention of Smalltalk is to make a point that Python is great!

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three button mice on windows and macs
by Rainer Keller 06 Sep '06

06 Sep '06

Hi All, I am pretty new to Squeak. I just wrote a minimal parser of some configuration files and started to feel comfortable in the environment. Now since a few years I mostly use macs but at my new job I will have to work with Windows again. So I loved that fact that I can open my Squeak image on OSX and XP and just use the tools that I create in squeak on both systems. On both systems I have three button mice. Because the scroll wheel (middle) button is rather hard to press I am using it to get the halos, with the right mouse button used for the context menu. Now I found the general preference to set this up, but the behavior is inverse on windows than on macs. So when switching platforms I always have to change the preference. Did I overlook another setting or a configuration file that would fix this? Or in which class (or possibly where in the VM code) would be a good place to fix this? Best regards, Rainer Keller

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code browser - dead tree version?
by Bakki Kudva 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

Hi all, The squeak code browser and whisker browser are great but some times it is convenient to have a pretty print version of the code on paper for those occasions when you are sitting under a tree by the Seaside. Is there some way to pretty print to a .ps file all the code under a certain class category? I experimented with fileout and print out commands and the unformatted html files aren't exactly what I had in mind. I would very much appreciate any pointers to print utilities. Didn't see anything on Squeakmap. Thanks, bakki

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I am not sure if choose squeak/smalltalk or another language. HELP
by Antonio San. 02 Sep '06

02 Sep '06

Hi! I'm a total newbie at all ;-) I don't know about squeak, I'm not a programmer... I only know about linux ;-D So sure I will say a lot of stupid thinks. First of all, squeak overload my CPU. 80-90% all the time, even if I do nothing. Except if I move the mouse (then I get 100%). I have a 300Mhz with 64 Mb RAM. Its old, I know, but it means that I can't program in squeak? And the worst, it means that all the programs I do (even the smallest) will eat as much CPU and RAM? I want to learn to develop programs for building simple tools for children, math quiz, games for learn the multiplications, learn vocabulary, etc... I'm a teacher (in a poor school). I can't afford to buy computers. We have 4 pentiums 300Mhz with 64 Mb and 4 pentiums 200Mhz mmx with 32Mb RAM. Is squeak / smalltalk for us? Or it would be better to choose another language like C, python or ruby...? (java is ruled out because the programs in java are veeeery slow in this PCs) Second, I don't understand very well squeak one thing, I have to install an image of squeak, a VM and a sources file. Why sources file has another version that image of squeak. Third, I have read almost all post in the list and I have the feeling that with squeak/smalltalk I could do anything, but then, why the projects you can find are so few and so strange? You can't find an mp3 ripper or a CD burner or a program for doing a backup or a fast downloader or a DVD author or a simple image cutter... Forth, is it possible the comunication with the exterior of squeak? What I mean is, if we could do, for example, a gui interface for a console program (a frontend). Or a program with needs comunication with special devices like webcams or scanners...? Thank you. Regards. Antonio. ______________________________________________ LLama Gratis a cualquier PC del Mundo. Llamadas a fijos y móviles desde 1 céntimo por minuto. http://es.voice.yahoo.com

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Squeak on handhelds
by maynard＠jmg.com 31 Aug '06

31 Aug '06

I notice there's a fairly large number of CPU ports for squeak, and I think I saw an ARM port out there somewhere. So, questions: - Is there support for pen input? Recent versions of X11 support pen input, if squeak were run on top of X would squeak handle pen events as mouse events? What about the three button mouse issue with a pen? - Are there versions of squeak which will paint directly to a frame buffer, or does it currently need an underlying OS with graphics like Win, MacOS X, X11? - Is anyone working on a handheld computing project to incorporate squeak on the Nokia 770, iPaq, etc? If so, is the project just to get the squeak dev environment running, or are the developers targetting a whole handheld environment (calandar, note taking, names and addresses, email, etc)? Thanks much, --M

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yourself
by Bakki Kudva 31 Aug '06

31 Aug '06

Hi, I'm a bit confused about y ourself. I understand that the definition of yourself is ^self But when I browse Object and look at yourself: all I find is the description string.. "Answer self." What happened to ^self? Where is the actual code implementing this? Thanks, bakki

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Special invitation: Squeak Meeting 28th Okt Bern/Switzerland
by Marcus Denker 31 Aug '06

31 Aug '06

Hi, We organize a Smalltalk event in Bern the Saturday 28th October 2006. [Newbies] are especially encouraged! Meet other Squeakers, the chance to learn and have fun. More info on: http://scgwiki.iam.unibe.ch:8080/SSUGWiki/16 Please register on the wiki page if you come, as we will have some food provided by SSUG. (login: ssug password: snoopy). Marcus -- Marcus Denker http://www.iam.unibe.ch/~denker

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PluggableTextMorph
by Keith McKay 31 Aug '06

31 Aug '06

Hi I'm looking for some advice on setting the margins in a PluggableTextMorph(PTM) programaticaly. It can be done easily once the PTM is open in the World by drilling down to the TextMorph and invoking its menu using the halos, but I would like the option of initialising them, or adding as an item to a menu of the PTM. Am I missing something obvious? Should I just use a TextMorph instead? Hints rather than solutions would be preferable. Thanks Keith Hamilton, Scotland -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.11.6/428 - Release Date: 25/08/2006

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Question about style
by Stephen Davies 30 Aug '06

30 Aug '06

Hi listees, I'm trying to find my Smalltalk accent, if you know what I mean. In a project I have a class that's a subclass of Dictionary. I created the following method to create a convenient way of accessing entries in the dictionary: doesNotUnderstand: aSelector "for unknown selectors, see if we can find an environment variable and return that" ^ self at: aSelector asString ifAbsent: [ super doesNotUnderstand: aSelector ] So my question is whether this is considered good style or not? It works quite well (except the doIt in a workspace pops up to say the selector is unknown). This sort of thing is done in Ruby often, and I did find some examples in various classes in my image. (Actually one example even defined the missing accessor on the fly - that's really showing off). Thanks, Steve

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Metaclass hierarchy - Explanation - Part 2
by Damien Cassou 30 Aug '06

30 Aug '06

In Smalltalk, 1) Everything is an object 2) Each object is an instance of a class 3) Each class has a superclass but one called ProtoObject (in squeak) 4) A class is the only instance of its metaclass 5) Each metaclass is an instance of the class Metaclass The browser can inform you what are the super classes of a given class. The super class of Collection is Object. The super class of Object is ProtoObject ProtoObject has no superclass. What are the super classes of metaclasses ? The super class of 'Collection class' is 'Object class, which super class is 'ProtoObject class'. We can see that classes hierarchies and their metaclasses hierarchies are parallel. But metaclasses goes further because 'ProtoObject class' is not 'ProtoObject' and we said that only ProtoObject has no superclass. What is the superclass of 'ProtoObject class' ? This is Class And this is perfectly normal: when you say 'Collection is a class', this is true. It means, that Collection is an instance of Class or one of its subclasses. Same thing when you say 'This blue car in my street is a vehicule'. The blue car could be an instance of the class Car which could be a subclass of Vehicule. Imagine you want to add an instance variable to the class Collection. You will use something like: Collection addInstVar: 'newVar'. You send the message #addInstVar: to Collection. Messages are sent to objects and should be implemented in the class of this objects. So, #addInstVar: should be implemented in 'Collection class' or one of its super classes. This messages is looked up in the hierarchy of 'Collection class' and an implementation if found in the class Class. Is this still ok ?

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Beginners August 2006