Squeak-dev February 1998

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110 participants
320 discussions

RE: What's the best brain bludgeon?
by Serg Koren 23 Feb '98

23 Feb '98

"On To Smalltalk" - Patrick Henry Winston is very good. Also if you want the code for "A Taste of Smalltalk" you can get it from my MacSqueak 1.24 http://www.VisualNewt.com/Mac/Squeak124.html Cheers, S ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Serg Koren Principal VisualNewt Software, Makers of Newt'sPaper(tm): http://www.VisualNewt.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Sunday, February 22, 1998 3:06 PM, William Barnett-Lewis [SMTP:wlewis@mailbag.com] wrote: > The only one even close is "A Taste of Smalltalk" by our fearless T.K. > I'm working on turning it into a built in tutorial, but I fear this (for > reasons other than it's content) may end upp being beyond me. But if I > ever can claim to understand ST, it will only be due to reading this > book -- several times. I can't say that, like SICP or "On Lisp", I've > learned something new everytime I've picked it up; but OTOH, I could > probably say every other time... > > > William > > Christopher Oliver wrote: > > > I'm still looking for a Smalltalk book comparable to SICP or > > Graham's "On Lisp" guaranteed to put muscles on a guy or grow hair > > on a billiard ball. Can anyone give me some pointers. So far, > > I've read through the purple and orange books, Burbeck's MVC piece, > > and Liu. I was rather hoping the last of these might fit the bill, > > but I was left hungry. Are there any decent brain bludgeons for > > a curious Squeaker? > > > > Happy hacking, > > > > -- > > Christopher Oliver Traverse Communications > > Systems Coordinator 223 Grandview Pkwy, Suite 108 > > oliver(a)traverse.com Traverse City, Michigan, 49684 > > (define magic (lambda (f) (lambda (x) x))) > > (define (more-magic n) (lambda (f) (lambda (x) (f ((n f) x))))) > > >

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What's the best brain bludgeon?
by Christopher Oliver 23 Feb '98

23 Feb '98

I'm still looking for a Smalltalk book comparable to SICP or Graham's "On Lisp" guaranteed to put muscles on a guy or grow hair on a billiard ball. Can anyone give me some pointers. So far, I've read through the purple and orange books, Burbeck's MVC piece, and Liu. I was rather hoping the last of these might fit the bill, but I was left hungry. Are there any decent brain bludgeons for a curious Squeaker? Happy hacking, -- Christopher Oliver Traverse Communications Systems Coordinator 223 Grandview Pkwy, Suite 108 oliver(a)traverse.com Traverse City, Michigan, 49684 (define magic (lambda (f) (lambda (x) x))) (define (more-magic n) (lambda (f) (lambda (x) (f ((n f) x)))))

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Siren 1.31 Beta Release--ftp://ftp.create.ucsb.edu/pub/Smalltalk/Music/Siren
by stp＠limbo.create.ucsb.edu 22 Feb '98

22 Feb '98

Hello all, The beta-test release of the Siren 1.31 package is now available from ftp://ftp.create.ucsb.edu/pub/Smalltalk/Music/Siren. Other sites may be mirroring this in the near future. (What happened to the UIUC Squeak ftp archive, anyway?) This is a pre-release for those wanting to test the MIDI output and learn the Smoke language while we port the GUI applications over to Morphic (for which we're looking for collaborators!). Introduction ============ The Siren system is a general-purpose music description and composition system; it is a re-implementation of the "Musical Object Development Environment" (MODE), the software component of the "Interim DynaPiano" project. Siren is a collection of Squeak Smalltalk class libraries for building musical applications; it is known to work on Squeak version 1.31 running on an Apple PowerPC-based Macintosh computer with support for the Opcode MIDI System (OMS) drivers and CD-quality stereo audio I/O. (I develop on a G3 PowerBook with 64 MB of RAM running MacOS 8.1 and OMS 2.3.3.) There are several elements to Siren: -- the Smoke music representation language (music magnitudes, events, event lists, generators, functions, and sounds); -- voices, schedulers and I/O drivers (real-time and file-based voices, sound and MIDI I/O); -- user interface components for musical applications (UI tools and widgets); and -- several built-in applications (editors and browsers for Smoke objects). Where's More Documentation? Various versions and components of Siren's predecessors (The HyperScore ToolKit and the MODE) are documented in the book "The Well-Tempered Object: Musical Applications of Object-Oriented Software Technology" (S. T. Pope, ed. MIT Press, 1991), in papers in the Proceedings of the 1986, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, and 1997 International Computer Music Conferences (ICMCs), in an article on the "Interim DynaPiano" in "Computer Music Journal" 16:3, Fall, 1992 (heartily recommended--it's also on the web), in the book "Musical Signal Processing" (C. Roads, S. T. Pope, G. DePoli, and A. Piccialli, eds. Swets & Zeitlinger, 1997), and in several documents on the Web page http://www.create.ucsb.edu/~stp/publ.html. There are more MODE- and Smoke-related documents (including several of the above references) in the directory ftp://ftp.create.ucsb.edu/pub/Smalltalk/Music/Doc. The Siren virtual image also includes an "outline" text for a brief introduction to, and self-paced demo of, the system. New users are encouraged to read and experiment with the Siren outline (the text contents of which are also included on the FTP site). What's There? ============= In this release, I've included a complete pre-built Siren/Mac VI/VM. In the future, I plan to provide this solution (for those who don't want to have to build it from scratch), and also complete file-ins and incremental changes relative to the first full release of Siren. The directory contents are, README -- RTFM File (Not the same as this letter--read it). Siren1.31Image.sit.hqx -- The image, changes file, PowerPC VM, and test data. (It expects you to put a Squeak sources file [not included] in the same directory before running it.) Siren1.31OMSStuff.sit.hqx -- The Opcode MIDI System (OMS) driver, utilities, and developer libraries. Siren1.31STSrc.sit.hqx -- The Smalltalk file-in sources & build scripts. Siren1.31VMSrc.sit.hqx -- The VM & MIDI primitive sources. Note that the project file is for CodeWarrior V11 (thanks to John McIntosh). SirenOutline.t -- The on-line doc and self-guided demo outline contents SqueakOutline.t -- The Squeak intro outline contents. If you already have the OMS MIDI driver, you really only need the virtual image files. If you don't have OMS, then grab the OMS Stuff archive file as well. If you want to re-build the VM, get the VM sources. To file Siren into your own image, get the Smalltalk sources. Please read the README files in each of these archives for more directions. RTFM ==== Please read the on-line documentation. There is an "outline browser" in the top project of the virtual image with an extensive self-guided tour of what works in the current Siren release. User suggestions are solicited as to what should be included here For more documentation, see http://www.create.ucsb.edu/~stp/publs.html and follow the "MODE" links, or look at the files in the ftp directory ftp://ftp.create.ucsb.edu/pub/Smalltalk/Music/Doc. Notes ===== Siren uses the AndreasRaab/SamAdams MS-Windows look; it still has a few rough edges (particularly with the Transcript and window label refreshing). The Siren VM included with the release comes up "full screen" on a Mac--that is, I hacked the MacWindow source to make a full-screen window with the origin just above and to the left of the normal menu bar position. Because of a bug I haven't solved yet, you cannot run a jitter-based VM that uses the OMS primitives. (To make a jitter VM, just edit the 4 "Interpreter..." files in the ST Source folder to file them in to the class DynamicInterpreter, then generate the translator file.) You can call the MIDI open/close/test functions fine, but it crashes in the first GC after you try to play a MIDI command--just as if I was stepping on someone elses memory in the output primitive, but I can't see where I'm doing this... I'm not certain what the best forum for discussing Siren is, For the near-term future, I'll be reading the squeak mailing list (mail to squeak-request(a)cs.uiuc.edu to join). The list's archive can be read at http://squeak.cs.uiuc.edu/mail/squeak/. In the future, I might set up a mailing list for Siren-specific discussions, or use a Swiki or a HyperNews web site. (Suggestions?) Coming Soon =========== --Working MIDI input (I'm real close...) --(Hopefully) Ports of the MIDI primitives to other platforms (any takers?) --Working AIFF and SND file reading/playing --Complete double-dispatching and mixed-mode arithmetic for music magnitudes --Exception-handling integrated with schedulers and DSP code --Morphic score & sound editors --Examples of using functions and event list processing --Incorporate Hitoshi Katta's and Craig Latta's enhancements to the MODE. --Ports of a ParserGenerator (TGen?) and Rule-based shell (NeOpus? HAT?) --Gemstone database access for sound/score storage --Loads of bug fixes Enjoy--comments, suggestions, and *changeSets* welcomed! stp _ Stephen Travis Pope _ Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE) _ Department of Music, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) _ stp(a)create.ucsb.edu, http://www.create.ucsb.edu/~stp/

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Re: Siren 1.31 Beta Release--ftp://ftp.create.ucsb.edu/pub/Smalltalk/Music/Siren
by stp＠limbo.create.ucsb.edu 22 Feb '98

22 Feb '98

I wrote, >> [Siren] it is known to work on Squeak version 1.31 >> running on an Apple PowerPC-based Macintosh computer to which Richard Smol replied, > Darn, so much for compatibility :( I'm not certain I understand, but I really do hope that the Siren MIDI primitives get ported to other platforms. The Opcode MIDI System is supposed to be portable to MS-Windows, and the MIDI primitives are quite simple and well-documented in the hope that others will port them on other platforms (I'll be doing SGI as soon as the Mac version is finished). My intention is certainly to foster multi-platform applications, I just don't have a PC handy; we use Mac, Sun, and SGI here. stp _ Stephen Travis Pope _ Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology (CREATE) _ Department of Music, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) _ stp(a)create.ucsb.edu, http://www.create.ucsb.edu/~stp/

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Re: Float bug toolkit: what the hash is this?
by David N. Smith 21 Feb '98

21 Feb '98

At 16:12 -0500 2/19/98, Mike Klein wrote: >...SNIP... >It has been already noted that hashing Floats is a rare occurence, >so who cares if it's expensive, as long as it's right: >...SNIP... There ar two kinds of rare: * Only a few users of the system ever do it, or * Everybody does it but it's only a trivial part of the code. In the former case, performance matters, and to such a user hashing floats is not a rare occurence. _______________________________ David N. Smith IBM T J Watson Research Center Hawthorne, NY _______________________________ Any opinions or recommendations herein are those of the author and not of his employer.

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Re: VM generation
by Ian Piumarta 21 Feb '98

21 Feb '98

> That's a small but significant problem. I think the significance of the problem is rather subjective. On one hand, the problem is that the assertion is "wrong" and not the behaviour of the VM. The assertion is correctly detecting an exceptional condition, but this condition is handled correctly elsewhere. From this point of view it's an insignificant problem: compiling without assertions will produce a working VM, as Andreas points out. On the other hand, restructuring the method lookup code so that the assertion is never reached in normal operation will deal with the exceptional condition earlier in the lookup, in a place which is not critical to performance. This will allow some later testing for (and handling of) the condition to be removed from places which have more effect on performance. From this point of view it is significant, but only if one is interested in counting fractions of a percent of VM performance. If anyone is desperate to build a 1.31 VM with assertions enabled then it suffices to remove (in the image) the test for whether the jitter or bytecode VM is running, during the startup of the low space process to determine at what threshold the semaphore is signalled, and unconditionally use the larger of the two values. I will hopefully have a little spare time again to devote to Squeaky things in the next few days, during which I'll fix this problem and build a 1.31 release for all the Unix platforms. Ian

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Re: VM generation
by Andreas Raab 21 Feb '98

21 Feb '98

> Does anybody know why this is so ? The normal (Unix generated) Jitter VM > failed on startup with an assertion failed error. That's a small but significant problem. You must not generate with assertions enabled - it will always result in this startup error (and also disabling assertions makes the resulting code faster). Andreas -- Linear algebra is your friend - Trigonometry is your enemy. +===== Andreas Raab ============= (raab(a)isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de) =====+ I Department of Simulation and Graphics Phone: +49 391 671 8065 I I University of Magdeburg, Germany Fax: +49 391 671 1164 I +=============< http://isgwww.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~raab >=============+

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Re: Dugan piece...
by Christopher Oliver 20 Feb '98

20 Feb '98

> Christopher -- I think you would much prefer Kay's own history of > Smalltalk cited in the references of the Dugan piece: I saw HOPL II at a local Borders, and I think I'll kick myself a few more times for not buying it in the spot. On the other hand, a friend just lent me the Baloon issue of byte, and it's next on my platter after Chamond Liu. > I will thank you for pointing out Dugan's paper even though I believe he > goes out on a limb with many of his conclusions. Yeah. I'm not really much of a fan of social determinism or decon- struction. On the other hand, I do like the read about the local culture that surrounds the development community, and the stories which focus on the individuals and their contributions to the way a system or language turns out. > * http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DeconstructAlmostAnything nudge nudge ;-) -- Christopher Oliver Traverse Communications Systems Coordinator 223 Grandview Pkwy, Suite 108 oliver(a)traverse.com Traverse City, Michigan, 49684 (define magic (lambda (f) (lambda (x) x))) (define (more-magic n) (lambda (f) (lambda (x) (f ((n f) x)))))

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Re: Dugan piece...
by Mike Klein 20 Feb '98

20 Feb '98

> Kay, Alan. "The Early History of Smalltalk." From the Proceedings of the > History of Programming Languages Conference II. In ACM Sig Plan Notices. > Vol. 28, no. 3. Cambridge: ACM, March 1993. Any chance of getting this one on to the web? It is the paper I have most-often photocopied for friends... -- Mike Klein

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re: thou shalt put the scrollbar on the left
by Mike Klein 20 Feb '98

20 Feb '98

Hmm Scrollbars.... Rambling Thought's.... Flop-out scrollbar have high nostalgia value. Anyone have the new mouse with the scroll-wheel on it? Scroll-bars ar a bit of an anacronism. Didn't scrolls go out of style centuries ago with the advent of bound-books & page? (Of course with the WWW we have the worst of both worlds :-) I direct your attention to "TOG on Interface" (He even talk's about the first appearance of proprtion scroll bars in 'Small Talk' pg. 211). Specifically, Ch 27, Fitt's Law. Fitt's law states that the time required to move from a starting point to within the confines of a target area is dependent on a logarithmic relationship between the distance (D) from the point to the target area and the size (S) of the target. [Something akin to: Time = C1 + log (D/S + C2)] I often find that the easiest way to "scroll" is to just drag select past the appropriate boundary, and let auto-scrolling do the work. (Note: easiest ~= fastest). NextSTEP did scroll bars the best: The scroll buttons were all located in the bottom-left corner (where your eye is when you are attempting to look for the first line off of the bottom of the view), so that moving amogst them for fine scrolling operations required no large mouse travel. Clicking in the "thumb" of the scroll bar did NOT move the thumb... only draging it did. The thumb was proportionally sized, and never shrunk beyong a usable distance. (I'm sure many of you out there have had to deal with the one-pixel-high scroll thumb, at times) And the bar was on the left. Windows 3.1 did it the worst: Whilst draggin the thumb, if you left the scroll gutter, the thumb & text would jump back to its original position. The net effect is that while scrolling, you have to watch the scroll bar, making it difficult to read while scrolling. -- Mike Klein

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