Beginners November 2009

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40 participants
37 discussions

A brilliant idea... Re: [Pharo-project] Pharo Sprint
by Lawson English 24 Nov '09

24 Nov '09

I would have liked to be a fly on the wall during that, even though I suspect it was way beyond my comprehension... Which leads me to one of my most brilliant ideas ever (IMHO)... With the second life setup used by NPR's Science Friday radio show http://www.sciencefriday.com/ and the Metanomics virtual world TV show http://www.metanomics.net/ it IS possible to be a fly on the wall during such an event. My idea: have 2 talented Squeak programmers working on some problem. It might be a simple one or hideously complex or whatever. Have a skype connection between the two + a VNC connection. Now, pipe the skype into Second Life voice. Pipe the VNC into a passive streaming QT connection. Simulcast on Second Life and a web page. Leverage the metanomics mega-local-chat for kibbitzing and questions (highlighted by prefixing QUESTION: to the local chat). Now let the pair programming begin. Occasionally, one of the programmers can glance at the comments flowing past from Second Life and the website and respond (you can writer a filter the comments by the prefix "QUESTION:", so they can go to a separate window, ditto with "SUGGESTION:"). What do you gain? You gain the ability to let other programmers look over your shoulder during pair programming and discuss what is going on quietly among themselves, which could make for a wonderful real-world teaching tool. You ALSO gain the ability to have an unlimited number of programmers glancing over your shoulder and making suggestions without distracting the flow of the programming session. This wouldn't be hard to set up. I know the people who work on the Science Friday and Metanomics projects and I suspect they would be quite interested in working this up. The only issue is $$ for the simulcast video stream. You could start small for tests and work up. With "unlimited" funding you could easily have 500+ passive participants in the session once it gets going. Everyone is thinking "why not do this with croquet/cobalt?" The answer is that you can! BUT, SciFri and Metanomics have already set up the machinery for this on a large scale in Second Life, and there is a pre-existing potential audience of many thousands of computer geeks who lurk in Second Life already at any given moment. It would also be great advertising for Squeak/Cobalt/Croquet if such sessions showed off some spiffy aspect of those technologies. You could have purely beginning level, intermediate level and advanced teaching sessions, as well as real-world problem solving sessions. They may or may not be widely watched, but you never know unless you try. And imagine if such a session were slash-dotted and/or mentioned on Science Friday... Lawson (always in marketing mode) Alexandre Bergel wrote: > Aldo and I seat down during the Pharo Sprint on Saturday. We had fun. > Below what we did. > > > ISSUE #262 (fixed) > Doits are now executed by primtive. This means, a doit method is > *never* installed in a class. > We removed all now unnecessary checks of isDoit > > - Behavior>>allLocalCallsOn: > - ChangeSet>>atSelector: selector class: class put: changeType > - MethodReference>>isValid > - PCCByCompilation>>methodsWithDisabledCall > - PackageInfo>>methods > - SystemNavigation>>browseAllCallsOn: aLiteral localTo: aClass > > Pair programmed with Aldo Mettini > > Slice_262_isDoIt-Alexandre_Bergel.1 in Pharo Inbox > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > ISSUE #1486 (fixed) > > Added BehaviorTest>>testAllLocalCallsOn > > Pair programmed with Aldo Mettini during the Pharo Sprint @ Smalltalks > 2009 > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > > ISSUE #1488 (new) > > Dictionary is not a superclass of SmallDictionary, and > SmallDictionary is not a subclass of Dictionary. The only common > superclass of these two classes is Collection. Putting > unreferencedKeys in Collection does not look too good as well. > Therefore, unreferencedKeys looks like to be a good candidate for > being shared by a trait. > > Pair programmed with Aldo Mettini during the Pharo Sprint @ Smalltalks > 2009 > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > > ISSUE #261 (fix) > > Even though allCallsOn: implies something about "calls" which seems to > be related to sends, it actually even is used for references to classes. > > We added a SystemNavigation>>allReferencesTo: aLiteral that returns > the list of methods referencing aLiteral. > We simplified allCallsOn: since now it acts on symbols only. It raises > a deprecation warning if a binding is provided to allCallsOn:. We > refactored all callers of allCallsOn: and wrote some tests (for the > one that was easy to write): BehaviorTest>>testAllCallsOn > > Pair programmed with Aldo Mettini during the Pharo Sprint @ Smalltalks > 2009 > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > > Cheers, > Alexandre >

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[Feedback] What you like to see in the FunTrunk?
by Edgar J. De Cleene 24 Nov '09

24 Nov '09

Folks: http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/5074/swtcomet.jpg Shows SWT as was presented in Smalltalks 2009 running. The image have until now (from MonticelloBrowser) 39Deprecated-ar.13 Asteroid-dgd.57 Balloon-ar.13 CardsGame-dgd.58 Collections-ar.205 CollectionsTests-dtl.117 Compiler-cwp.97 Compression-edc.9 DynamicBindings-GiovanniCorriga.10 EToys-nice.39 Exceptions-jcg.15 FFI-Kernel-ar.7 Files-cwp.30) FlexibleVocabularies-nice.9 Graphics-nice.90 GraphicsTests-nice.17 Installer-Core-nice.90 JSON-sp.12 Kernel-ul.303 KernelTests-ul.110 KomHttpServer-edc.52 KomServices-gc.19 Lock-dgd.1 Monticello-edc.334 MonticelloConfigurations-nice.64 Morphic-kb.244 MorphicExtras-ul.59 MorphicTests-nice.12 Multilingual-nice.63 MultilingualTests-mha.2 Nebraska-ar.22 Network-nice.40 Network-IRC-fc.10.7.6 NetworkTests-ar.10 PackageInfo-Base-edc.31 PreferenceBrowser-kb.39 Protocols-nice.14 ReleaseBuilder-nice.39 SMBase-dtl.92 SMLoader-gk.37 ST2JS-dgd.112 ST80-nice.69 SUnit-nice.70 SUnitGUI-nice.44 SWT-dgd.127 ScriptLoader-nice.327 Seaside2-ar.97 Services-Base-ar.36 ShoutCore-rss.4 Sound-nice.9 System-nice.168 SystemChangeNotification-Tests-edc.10 Tests-bf.38 ToolBuilder-Kernel-ar.23 ToolBuilder-MVC-ar.16 ToolBuilder-Morphic-ar.41 ToolBuilder-SUnit-cwp.12 Tools-ar.144 ToolsTests-nice.1 Traits-ar.243 TrueType-nice.11 Universes-tfel.41 VersionNumber-dew.1 VersionNumberTests-it.2 XML-Parser-mir.9 And I plan in the next days try to convert Games of 3.6 to ProcustesEnd format and load into. So , opening FunTrunk.20091122.image ( I update the growing image and do new, reporting any issues), people should be able to have Kom, Seaside, SWT, Games, some tutorials. I ask you old and new Squeaker your wishes for having your pet also and beg patience. Some packages could change or not to be in the image as I test more. Edgar P.S. Gracias Diego y Germán. Slogan in Spanish: ³Si si señores, yo soy del Trunk, ya que este año el Trunk será campeón² It¹s a parody of soccer stadium sung by passionate fans of some team, in this case The Trunk

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RE: [Newbies] [semi-OT] (fwd) Re: What Killed Smalltalk?
by Tim Johnson 23 Nov '09

23 Nov '09

Squeak by Example is a great place to start, and it is free. After that, An Introduction to Seaside is very good. The Design Patterns Smalltalk Companion puts now-commonplace concepts into context. Chamond Liu's book is also very good. Then for some polish, check Kent Beck's Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns. cheers, tim -original message- Subject: RE: [Newbies] [semi-OT] (fwd) Re: What Killed Smalltalk? From: Christine Wolfe <cwdw01(a)earthlink.net> Date: 11/22/2009 9:31 PM I agree 100% It seems like most of the documentation is a tutorial or example but not a straight forward explanation of how to use it. Everything ends up being trial and error. I enjoy the language very much and would be tempted to use it again but realistically a good comprehensive guide would be great. Also, a nice document that describes each class and its methods (beyond just the comments included in the class definite itself) would be a huge help. -----Original Message----- From: beginners-bounces(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org [mailto:beginners-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org] On Behalf Of Lawson English Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 8:20 PM To: A friendly place to get answers to even the most basic questions about Squeak. Subject: Re: [Newbies] [semi-OT] (fwd) Re: What Killed Smalltalk? Steve Wessels wrote: > That's right. Smalltalk hasn't died. I am fortunate enough to be part of a team developing financial software for many years using Smalltalk. > > People have predicted Smalltalk's death about as often as Apple's death. > > I think comparisons between Smalltalk and Java have to take marketing into account. > > Paying Smalltalk work is harder to find. Here's an interesting twist. Companies looking for skilled Object Oriented developers, if they understand what they need, will seek programmers with Smalltalk experience. > > Speaking as a long-term script kiddie who likes to collect languages, I can tell you that the main reason(s) why *I* find Smalltalk difficult to use involve(s): lack of documentation, lack of well-documented example code, lack of compsci teaching materials written with Smalltalk for the example code, etc. Notice a trend? Smalltalk may have been designed to be easy to learn and use, but it has never been adopted by the pedagogical community of teachers and how-to book-writers, so naturally new programmers (from whom experienced programmers grow) are never attracted to it. The main issue is lack of ways for new programmers (experienced in other languages or otherwise) to learn not just the syntax of the language, but how to DO stuff with it. E.G.: I can't grab the Unix Programming or Unix Network Programming books by Stevens and work through Smalltalk equivalents of the example code. There's no Data Structures in Smalltalk books, nor Algorithm Analysis in Smalltalk books, nor build your own virtual world from scratch using Smalltalk and OpenGL, or Game AI in Smalltalk, or... There IS a Numerical Methods book in Smalltalk, but that's hardly beginner/intermediate level, IMHO. You get the idea. All the reference material for Smalltalk is geared for complete beginners, or for people who are exceedingly experienced. No middle ground. And some of the most interesting (sounding) aspects of Smalltalk, such as the Teatime architecture, are hardly covered in ways that relative newcomers can understand (speaking as a relative newcomer with a 2 year AAS degree and a couple decades intermittent experience programming). Smalltalk (e.g. Squeak) may not be fast enough to be used in high-end production implementations, but surely it could be the language-of-choice for learning new aspects of compsci and programming. After all, many of these "new aspects" of compsci and programming were originally developed/matured using Smalltalk. Why should people have to go to a less versatile language in order to actually learn to use the results of Smalltalk-based research? Lawson _______________________________________________ Beginners mailing list Beginners(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners _______________________________________________ Beginners mailing list Beginners(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/beginners

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Opening URL in default browser.
by Mike Vidal 20 Nov '09

20 Nov '09

Hi, Is it possible to have squeak run the default web browser and have it go to a url?

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HTTP encoding into UTF8
by Stephane Schitter 17 Nov '09

17 Nov '09

hello, I am playing around with squeak to connect to webservices and I run into issues very early in the process. Something to do with url encoding. Is there any reason the following code: 'aa aa éé aa aa' encodeForHTTP would generate this: 'aa%20aa%20%C3%A9%C3%A9%20%A9aa%20%A9aa' where "space" is correctly set to %20 before the 'é' gets converted, but then becomes %20%A9 afterwards. As if the %A9 of my 'é' stays in the buffer and breaks my encoding of space character. Any help would be appreciated I am not even dealing with XML processing of the reply for webservice as I cannot get the query going :) Thanks, Stephane

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Defining a binary message selector
by Andy Burnett 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

As an experiment, I tried to create a Fibonacci method for Integer. Initially, I defined it as Integer>>fibonacci: aNumber. However, having thought about it a bit more I realised that it should probably be a binary message like '+'. I tried to create it as such, but Squeak wouldn't let me - even when I copied the code from the '+' method. After a bit of head scratching, I decided that '+' was probably a symbol, and that binary messages are probably limited to using symbols as selectors. However, I once arrived late to a baseball game (never having seen it played before), got confused about which team was which, and invented an entirely new scoring system that pretty much explained the results on the scoreboard. So, I may be completely wrong about binary selectors! If I am right about them requiring to be symbols. Would it be a good idea for meto make 'fibonacci' a symbol as well? Or would that lead to unintended problems down the road? Cheers Andy

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Re: Defining a binary message selector
by Andy Burnett 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

Michael said << If you want to implement the method as a binary message (with special characters), everything is fine >> Brilliant, so I was on the right track - sort of! Now for the important question. Where are the special characters defined? I looked in Smalltalk, and found a SpecialObjectsArray (along with a warning saying "don't touch this"!). I am not planning to touch it, but I am curious to understand how the system works. << The argument to a binary message is not undeclared; the simple fact that the message is binary *implies* there will be a parameter. Am I making sense? >> Totally, that clears it up for me. Cheers Andy

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Speed
by John Worden 16 Nov '09

16 Nov '09

Absolute beginner playing with smalltalk. I have a simple program that opens a number of text files, plays with data closes files and gives a count of things in the files. (Its actually my Squeak version of the Cincom VW Tutorial). I have run it on Squeak, Pharo and Cuis images. What suprised me was the difference in speeds. I haven't done tried to time it (I should do that or at least work out how to) but Squeak and Pharo take about the same time whereas Cuis is significantly quicker. I know its a cut down image but the difference is remarkable. Is this to be expected? John

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Re: Defining a binary message selector
by Andy Burnett 15 Nov '09

15 Nov '09

Michael said << Hi Andy, why would the message have to be binary anyway? If you want the k-th Fibonacci number, why don't you just send #fib to k? Regarding symbols vs. not symbols: all selectors are symbols, internally. I might get something in your e-mail wrong - could you restate the question? >> Hi Michael Thanks very much for your thoughts. Let me try to explain myself, slightly more clearly! First, this was just an experiment. I was reading a book on Python, saw how they did it, and thought I would try in Squeak. So, I hadn't really thought about how I was going to use it. I like your suggestion about implementing is as: anInteger #fib. However, thinking about implementing it as a binary message made me curious about why I couldn't do that. The specific problem I am having is: If I define an Integer method such as <<<*** aNumber Squeak is quite happy to let me create it. However, if I do something like fib aNumber, the compiler complains that aNumber is a unknown variable, which I need to define. So, what I was really trying to understand was what it was about the e.g. <<< symbol which allowed it to have an undeclared argument. I think that, based on your last message, it is just that <<< etc have been defined as special characters. Is that correct? Cheers Andy

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NXTTalk problem
by Андрей 15 Nov '09

15 Nov '09

Hello! Can anybody help me with NXTalk(a Smalltalk implementation for Lego Mindstorm NXT http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/hirschfeld/projects/nxtalk/)? A have installed it on my Lego NXT. Almost everything work fine, but I have troubles with NXTRadar. When I try to read distance from NXTRadar sensor its everytime returns 0. Other sensors works fine. I cant find any documentation about NXTalk except webpage of the project. But where is no information about using of NXTRadar on that page. So I decided to use it as a regular sensor. I did something like this: radar := NXTRadar enable: 4. self display show: (radar distance). radar disable. Am I right? Or NXTRadar differs from other sensors and needs special processing? Thank you for you attention to my problem.

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Beginners November 2009