Beginners April 2010

beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org

36 participants
42 discussions

Unit testing
by Sean P. DeNigris 19 Apr '10

19 Apr '10

After doing a lot of snooping around my image, I was surprised by the unit tests I saw (this is not a criticism, but me wanting to understand and contribute to the Squeak philosophy). Coming from C++, and then Ruby, the conversation is (for unit tests) to mock/stub out absolutely everything that the object-under-test interacts with; of course augmented by integration/functional/acceptance tests to verify the actual interactions. Dependency injection is in full force (which I always find ugly and complicated, but does make testing very easy). Yet in Squeak's core, I found things like KernelTests-Chronology StopwatchTest>>testActive, which sets a delay and - gasp - actually waits for the time to tick by. I would've always created a clock double to pretend that time had passed (even though, for the few seconds that passed in these particular tests, probably not a big deal; but when you add similar tests up all over the image?). Also, in Ruby, there is a huge push (e.g. rspec community) to write tests that a prospective library user could come along and see clear examples of how to use the classes; not to mention the BDD craze (which I've seen a few libraries for, but don't seem to be widely used) that helps refocus design based on behavior. Anyway, I'm presenting this because I am blown away by the Dynabook/Open Personal Computing vision. I'm clear that all the objects in my world want to live in a Squeak image. So it's important to me to: * spur conversation and growth * make sure code that I write fits with the spirit of the community Thanks. Sean DeNigris -- View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Unit-testing-tp2014654p2014654.html Sent from the Squeak - Beginners mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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[RELEASED] Squeak 4.1
by Andreas Raab 18 Apr '10

18 Apr '10

On behalf of the Squeak community, I'm happy to announce the availability of Squeak 4.1. Squeak 4.1 combines the license change occurring in the 4.0 release with the development work that has been going on while the relicensing process took place. Much of the work in this release has been focused on fundamental improvements. Major achievements are the integration of Cog's closure implementation, the improved UI look and feel, the new anti-aliased fonts, the core library improvements, and the modularity advances. To download the Squeak 4.1 release please visit: http://ftp.squeak.org/4.1 The Website will be updated over the next few days to reflect the availability of Squeak 4.1. Enjoy! - Andreas (on behalf of the Squeak community) Overview of Changes in Squeak 4.1 ================================= User Interface -------------- We have adapted the 'face lift' look originally developed for Newspeak. For those of us who like colored windows (quite a few as it turns out) you can switch between uniform and colored windows in the 'Extras' menu under 'Window Colors'. The new menu bar makes Squeak much easier to discover than before. The process of transitioning from the world menu is not complete yet, there are still items that can only be accessed from the world menu (i.e., by clicking on the desktop). The search field integrated in the menu bar allows for direct navigation to classes and methods - simply type in a partial class or method name and see what happens. A new set of inexpensive sub-pixel antialiased fonts derived from the DejaVu fonts ('Bitmap DejaVu' in the font chooser) has been added. True type font support has been upgraded to operate directly on files on disk without the need to load the entire file into memory. A new set of text editors has been added, which allowed us to decouple the Morphic and MVC implementations for improved modularity. Morphic now has regular blinking insertion point cursors instead of the (virtually invisible) static cursor previously. Compiler -------- Squeak 4.1 includes the closure implementation from Cog as a prerequisite for full Cog adoption later. With this implementation Squeak finally has 'full' closures, allowing classic recursive examples like the following to work: fac := [:n| n > 1 ifTrue:[n * (fac value: n-1)] ifFalse:[1]]. fac value: 5. Support for literal ByteArray syntax has been added. Byte arrays can now be written as #[1 2 3] instead of #(1 2 3) asByteArray avoiding the need for conversion. Selectors including minus are now parsed correctly, for example 3 <- 4 is now parsed as (3) <- (4) instead of (3) < (-4). White space is no longer allowed after an unary minus to denote a negative number literal. Development ----------- Syntax highlighting, based on Shout, is now included in all Squeak tools by default. For workspaces, it can be explicitly disabled in the window menu (press the blue button; entry 'syntax highlighting'). Sources and changes files are no longer limited to 32MB max size. ExpandedSourceFileArray provides an implementation for source files of arbitrary length, based on the CompiledMethodTrailer changes. MessageTrace has been added, allowing senders and implementors to be viewed without opening new windows all the time. It utilizes a new AlternatePluggableListMorphOfMany, which allows quick and easy customization of the list. A quick adoption of DependencyBrowser has been added allowing to browse dependencies between packages. Core Libraries -------------- Sets can now store nil just as any other collection. The collection hierachy has been refactored to have both Set and Dictionary a subclass of HashedCollection instead of having Dictionary a subclass of Set. Squeak now uses a better distributed scaledIdentityHash for identity sets and dictionaries. StandardFilestream now performs read-buffering, dramatically speading up some operations like "Object compileAll" (2x improvement) as well as various other operations (scanning change lists etc). A new traits implementation has been added. The implementation is significantly smaller and simpler than the old version and can be unloaded and reloaded without loss of information (i.e., traits flattened during unload are restored during traits reloading). A new extensible number parser hierharchy has been introduced NumberParser and its subclasses provide support for parsing and building numbers from strings and streams. A new general cleanup protocol has been added. The cleanUp protocol takes an optional argument to indicate whether we're doing an aggressive cleanup (which involves deleting projects, change sets, and possibly other destructive actions) or a more gentle cleanup that's only supposed to clean out transient caches. SystemDictionary and SmalltalkImage have been refactored. Smalltalk is now an instance of SmalltalkImage, representing a facade for system-wide queries and actions. SmalltalkImage contains a global environment, an instance of SystemDictionary, which the environment used by classes. Thus, SmalltalkImage current == Smalltalk, Object environment == Smalltalk globals. Modularity ---------- The following packages have been made reloadable: ReleaseBuilder, ScriptLoader, 311Deprecated, 39Deprecated, Universes, SMLoader, SMBase, Installer-Core, VersionNumberTests, VersionNumber, Services-Base, PreferenceBrowser, Nebraska, CollectionsTests, GraphicsTests, KernelTests, MorphicTests, MultilingualTests, NetworkTests, ToolsTests, TraitsTests, XML-Parser, Traits, SystemChangeNotification-Tests, FlexibleVocabularies, EToys, Protocols, Tests, SUnitGUI. To unload all of these, execute: Smalltalk unloadAllKnownPackages.

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Traits Browser
by Sean P. DeNigris 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

I have read all about Traits and I'm eager to try them out, but the default browser (Squeak4.1-9885-beta) doesn't seem to be aware of them - what am I missing? What are developers using traits using? Thanks. Sean -- View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/Traits-Browser-tp1934550p1934550.html Sent from the Squeak - Beginners mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Re: [squeak-dev] Squeaking up for "'click' sound play"
by Jerome Peace 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

--- On Wed, 4/14/10, K. K. Subramaniam <subbukk(a)gmail.com> wrote: > From: K. K. Subramaniam <subbukk(a)gmail.com> > Subject: Re: [squeak-dev] Squeaking up for "'click' sound play" > To: squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org > Cc: "Jerome Peace" <peace_the_dreamer(a)yahoo.com> > Date: Wednesday, April 14, 2010, 11:00 AM > On Wednesday 14 April 2010 06:55:04 > am Jerome Peace wrote: > > The number or name of something acts as a modifier, > yet if you use the > > number or name first in squeak it is a receiver. To > have a worthwhile > > language which resembles my speaking language I choose > to allow my > > modifiers to be receivers. > > > > It is stupid IMO to invent classes inorder to use > modifiers as argument > > parameters. In squeak modifiers sometimes belong in > the position of > > receivers. > Please consider all implications of your proposal. > > Tokens like 'click', #click or 23 are not modifiers. They > are just abstract > indices. They don't mean anything by themselves. A context > is needed to impart > meaning to them. > > You are suggesting that we embed this context into the > String class. But the > same logic may lead others to patching Symbol and Number > classes too. > > The scheme will blow up in multilingual situations. How do > you handle language > variants - 'hello', 'allo', 'hola' and so on. How would you? I would add the words to the sound library. Either connected to their particular sounds or redefining the sound I want them to refer to. Even if I did nothing "'allo' sound play." would make the default sound. > > Take another example, say 'bark'. I may want to generate a > 'bow wow' sound in > a particular context and 'woof woof' in another context. Suppose you did. How would you want to do it? bark := 'bow wow' . bark sound play. bark := 'woof woof' bark sound play. or bark := 'bow wow' sound . bark := 'woof woof' sound . bark play . Though in the latter case I might use barkSound instead of bark as the variable. > I > would rather have > this logic put into Sound class rather spread it amongst > basic classes. > Hmmm. In packaging the selector has been put in an extention so that it is packaged with Sound Library. In protocol it belongs as an instance method for String class and subclasses. > Would you extend the same reasoning to > 1005 asPlatformName > ^Smalltalk current getSystemAttribute: self. You mean instead of "SmalltalkImage current platformName" ? No, because 1005 asPlatformName has no meaning for me. It certainly would make code reading more mysterious. When I went to read it again I would not remember why 1005 was to be associated with anything let alone PlatformName. It also seems a very straw man like example. In that case its not the programmer who should be remembering the specific index. The principles involved here is to form the language to 1) Write intention revealing code. 2) Create as little dissonance with the language the programmer already has in his head.* Smalltalk gives you the chance to have programming language that sounds like natural talk. That's important to use. Yours in curiosity and service, --Jerome Peace *Currently this is biased towards English/American. > > Subbu >

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Annotated workspace for tutorials...
by Lawson English 16 Apr '10

16 Apr '10

This needs a lot of work, and obviously I need to RTFM, but the concept seems workable. Lawson

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SqueakVM on Ubuntu 64 bits
by Leandro Juarez 15 Apr '10

15 Apr '10

Hi. I'm having little trouble trying to install the squeakVM (4.0) on Ubuntu 64bits. i just tried from the testing channel only. deb http://ftp.squeak.org/debian/ x main deb-src http://ftp.squeak.org/debian/ x main on the ubuntu repository there's only version 3 any idea how/where to download? many thanks in advance. -- Leandro Juarez leandroo(a)gmail.com

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Resources with Monticello
by Matthias Korn 15 Apr '10

15 Apr '10

Hi all, how does one work with resources (e.g. image files (GIFs, ...)) used in the application when working with Monticello and in general? Right now I have them on my hard drive and they are read live into Squeak when they are needed. Of course, others don't have the files at hand when working in a distributed fashion. What are the best practices in regard of distribution/packaging as well as performance? Thanks, Matthias -- Matthias Korn Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik Fachbereich 5 Universität Siegen Telefon: +49 (0) 271 / 23 67 660 Mobil: +49 (0) 176 / 700 17 17 8 Uni: +49 (0) 271/ 740 - 3382 eMail: matthias.korn(a)uni-siegen.de

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How to sort a SortedCollection like you can sort a table in Excel?
by Paul DeBruicker 14 Apr '10

14 Apr '10

Hi - If I had a SortedCollection of rectangular solid objects (that just have the ivars height, width, depth), how could I sort it by height, then width, then depth? So three object: A) h: 10, w: 5, d: 3 B) h: 60, w: 2, d: 14 C) h: 10, w: 3, d: 27 And then after sorting they'd be in this order: B) h: 60, w: 2, d: 14 A) h: 10, w: 5, d: 3 C) h: 10, w: 3, d: 27 First sorted by height, then by width, then by depth. Is there a way to do that using just a #sortBlock: My only other approach would be to make a Set of the heights, sort that, then #select: a collection for each height, sort that by weight, then for each height make a Set of weights etc... Thanks Paul

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playing a sound in squeak
by FrankBz 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

Hi, I was wondering, what's an easy and quick way to load and play a sound file, say a wav, in a squeak program? If you have experience with any other format (midi, mp3, etc.) feel free to share it. What I'm really interested in is how sound works in squeak. Regards -- View this message in context: http://n4.nabble.com/playing-a-sound-in-squeak-tp1750578p1750578.html Sent from the Squeak - Beginners mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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browser choice..
by sergio_101 13 Apr '10

13 Apr '10

i have been trying the different browsers... the default browser OBSystemBrowser adaptor O2PackageBrowser adaptor and i REALLY like the groups view in O2PackageBrowser, the only thing i am missing is a way to view the versions... is it buried somewhere where i am just not finding it? thanks! -- ---- peace, sergio photographer, journalist, visionary http://www.coffee-black.com http://www.painlessfrugality.com http://www.twitter.com/sergio_101 http://www.facebook.com/sergio101

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Beginners April 2010