Squeak-dev July 2000

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121 participants
566 discussions

Re: Stopping the interpreter?
by Bruce ONeel 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

Hi, It depends on your system. On the mac it's Command period. On Windows it's Ctrl-Break or Alt- Period. Unix likes Alt Period. good luck! cheers bruce Kris Gijbels <kgijbels(a)vub.ac.be> wrote: > Hi, newbie question: > > I've managed to get my Squeak VM in an infinite loop, due to a stupid error in > one of my methods. I would really like to just stop the interpreter, correct > the code and try again, can I do that? (I've had this problem before, I would > then just kill the program, start it again ... but I have a BookMorph open with > a presentation for tomorrow and I really would not like to loose it ...)

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Stopping the interpreter?
by Kris Gijbels 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

Hi, newbie question: I've managed to get my Squeak VM in an infinite loop, due to a stupid error in one of my methods. I would really like to just stop the interpreter, correct the code and try again, can I do that? (I've had this problem before, I would then just kill the program, start it again ... but I have a BookMorph open with a presentation for tomorrow and I really would not like to loose it ...)

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RE: A New Look and Feel for Squeak
by Wim Boot 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

Karl, I see the operating system only as a necessary evil that lets me run the software I'm interested in. Having to change look and feel across platforms is quite unacceptable to people using such software. :) Wim Boot

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Re: Ship it with Squeak OR A NEW PARADIGM FOR SMALLTALK - Geeks beware
by Peter William Lount 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

Richard A. O'Keefe wrote: "Jay Carlson" <nop(a)nop.com> wrote: XML is fairly optimized for humans to be able to type it on the fly, but it still has lots of fiddly little rules. He *must* be kidding. SGML had lots of support for human-writability, but it was all stripped out to make XML. The goal for XML is machine readability, and the MathML specification openly confesses that MathML is too verbose and error-prone for people to write. Hi, Just ignore the complexities of XML and go for the simplicities. Your support matters. <this_is_a_simple_tag with_an_attribute="thevalue"> <this_is_a_tag_without_an_attribute> But with text sub item </<this_is_a_tag_without_an_attribute> </this_is_a_simple_tag> If you use the simple version of XML you'll gain in the long run. Only computer geeks use complex systems that normal people can't understand. DTDs or Document Type Defintions which define what tags are permitted are ok but they add complexity that's beyond normal human comprehension they suck. Use tags that are dynamic and create software that's flexible in understanding tags rather than imposing structure on people - this lets people impose structure on software. The end user rules the wasteland of software. The user is king not the programmer. Sorry to destroy your illusions. Refocuse your attention on the user. XML is powerful for it's dynamic flexiblity. The mistake in XML is the DTD's and other complexities. Gravitate to the simplicities. Life will be harder but more rewarding for programmers when you support you human users in the objectives that they wish to solve. Why are you here? What do you hear from your users? That they want complex systems? Or that they want simple systems? Smalltalk is too complex. Simplify it? How? Anyway that you can. Java is winning the war? Smalltalk is dead? Not a chance. But it is dead if we don't simplify and create a system that people - I mean real people, and not just you and I techies - can use. Real people. Simple people. People who buy and use Windoze systems. They are the real mass computer users out there. If you want Smalltalk to succeed then you must begin to address their concerns and reduce the complexity by at least 10 times - maybe even 100 times. Are you up to it? I doubt that it's possible for computer scientists or computer geeks to create a system that normal, everyday joe and janes can use effectively and program effortlessly. What is wrong with smalltalk? Why do you live with what's wrong. Change it now. My biggest pet peeve is the image. What a horrible single user notion the image is. It locks us into a cage with oursleves. Almost like a prision. Yes a prision. You can't escape it until you tear down the wall just like the east and west germans did a few years back. Save your self from the machine guns of the image that Smalltalk systems propagate. What a horrible idea the image is. It prevents sharing of objects. Objects are just memory creatures not shared object database creatures. No current or self respecting Smalltalk product would name itself smallltalk in the light of collaborative technologies and object databases unless it DOES NOT use an image. All object data MUST be stored in a "conncurrent object database" that is shared amoung Smalltalk systems. Each smalltalk system should be a RAM cache of objects from a shared object database. All objects should exist only in the shared object data base system. RAM is just a cache of objects from the data base. The image should no longer exist. The collection hierarchy is a systemic example of why smalltalk is too complex. There are 10+ collection classes. This is way too many. How about one that the user can configure to their needs. How about higher level objects. Lets give users the systems that the original creator of smalltalk intended. A simple system that even 10 year olds can program. Smalltalk as it stands is 30+ years of legacy. Some of this legacy is relevant today. What parts are relevant to you? What parts are relevant to the average Joe or Jane in the streets? Or in business? Smalltalk, like Java junk, C++ binary toung, C machine language, C# (shape) microbrain crap, and other languages directed at "computer geeks" are missing the point. The point, as I understand it from Alan Kay's and Doug Englebart's orginal messages, is to create systems that the average person - as in non-propeller head - human being can use to program to do their bidding. Smalltalk as it stands is a dead language - just like C++ and Java junk - because it requires people who use it to learn too much computer science. Ten years ago I taught a 40+ year computer veterian Smalltalk in 30 daze - days - and he said "wow, Smalltalk let me do 90% engineering (civil) and only 10% computer science - this is amazing, I love Smalltalk". The problem is that he had to do 10% computer science instead of 1%. Lets eliminate the propeller head requirement from Smalltalk so that Smalltalk can evolve with millions and millions of common simple folk users. More info at http://www.zoku.com. I will enjoy responding to any who wish to express their support or dissent. The best way to have me respond to your message is to email me at mailto:peter@smalltalk.org. All the best in your life and computing experience, Peter William Lount, Smalltalk.org Future Generator peter(a)smalltalk.org http://www.smalltalk.org http://www.zoku.com

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Re: A New Look and Feel for Squeak
by Les Tyrrell 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

Eric Arseneau wrote: > [ snip ! ] > > > Perhaps both could be done, but it seems to me to be a waste of time > > > to write code to make Squeak look like another operating system. > > Web browsing presents a quite different UI to most OSs, and offers at > > least a chance that we can force open the door to something better. One > > of the things I particularly dislike about all the .NET BS is the > > transparent attempt by M$ to make the web look like windows. Yuck. > > One of the great advantages of writing Squeak code to emulate the OS widgets > is that it then allows us to include innovation with the status quo. We can > deliver a package that uses the standard run of the mill UI. But then, at > the flick of a switch we can change it to a much more intuitive UI. This > allows the users to be drawn in and appreciate the app itself, and then find > that there are better and more efficient ways to work with it, once they > have become dependent on the app. This would be a great place to put in a reference to a paper that was apparently written by some of the ParcPlace folks who then went on to Sun to build Swing. A shame that I don't have that handy, so if you could kindly read my mind... I mention this because one of the issues that was raised in the paper, which was about re-implementing VW's GUI code, was that it was hard to keep up with the changes made by OS vendors, and that the emulated widgets would be close, but too often not quite close enough. If I recall, they set out to build a solution, using pattern-oriented development, in which they had both native and emulated widgets on all OS platforms- the emulated widgets could then pick up the slack as VW was moved to an OS where a given widget was not available, while ordinarily one would be using native widgets. - les

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Re: [BUG] Scamper bugs looking for a fix
by Richard A. O'Keefe 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

2) The page http://www.spellcheckit.com has a form with inputs. There appears to be no way to launch this form in Scamper. Yes, there is one line of Javascript in the window setup, but I don't understand how a standard browser uses it. If you are an HTML expert, tell us how this page works! There is a _lot_ of Javascript in that page. Look at elements like <a href="javascript:openScript('termsSpellCheck.asp',450,300)"> <b><font...>terms of use</font></b></a> What that means is when Joe Luser clicks on "terms of use" execute the Javascript code "openScript('...',450,300)" The function openScript() opens a document in a new window. Of course, this makes rather unwarranted assumptions about the screen size and resolution, doesn't work well in Lynx or Amaya, and doesn't work at all in browsers operated by people who know about and care about security.

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RE: A New Look and Feel for Squeak
by Eric Arseneau 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

> > I don't give too much on Tim's > > rant. Parcplace might have failed but Sun successed with Swing. > PPS didn't fail, technically. The system worked ok and could have ben > finished as a product relatively quickly. Usual management screwups > stopped it. Several of the people who worked on it ended u pworking on > swing. Last I heard, most of them still hate java several years later. I would agree with Tim. And add even more. To show how well it worked, do any of you know how many of the people working on Swing were actual x-smalltalk people. I got so many calls from 3 or 4 of my friend implementing the stuff asking me questions about how the different things managed to work in VW. To me, I see Swing as a re-implementation of what the old VW had. If any of them would have known about the other work (Vangaugh I think it was called) going on they could have succeeded even more. Even with the work they did plagerize, they still managed to get it wrong. Java still has the "write once, debug everywhere" mantra associated with it. VW NEVER had this problem (other than the foolish of us who messed with InputState and InputSensor, but then shame on us) !!!

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RE: A new default look for Squeak, revisited
by Pennell, David 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

Me too. I like the window titles a lot. -david -----Original Message----- From: Tim Rowledge To: squeak(a)cs.uiuc.edu Sent: 6/29/00 4:45 PM Subject: Re: A new default look for Squeak, revisited This I like; simple (possibly a bit less of the translucency, hmm?) clean and your fonts stuff is looking good. Gimme! -- Tim Rowledge, tim(a)sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim Strange OpCodes: SD: Self Destruct

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[ENH] String>>withFirstCharacterDownshifted
by Andres Valloud 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

Hi. This method is now more efficient... Andres.

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Re: Apple fonts
by Andrew C. Greenberg 03 Jul '00

03 Jul '00

At 2:32 PM -0700 7/2/00, John M McIntosh wrote: >on 7/2/00 12:57 AM, Stefan Matthias Aust at sma(a)3plus4.de wrote: > >> At 16:56 01.07.00 -0700, John M McIntosh wrote: >>> I've been watching the font issue with interest. I happen to know where one >>> can get a set of windows fonts that are bit identical to Apple bitmapped >>> fonts. Of course having created them 10 odd years ago helps. >> >> Wouldn't it an alternative to either try to license Microsoft's web core >> fonts (www.microsoft.com/typography/) or to clarify the uncertainty of the >> license once and forever? > >Well I think the sore point in the Squeak license is > >you may distribute and sublicense the Fonts only as a part of and for use >with Modified Software, and not as a part of or for use with Modified >Software that is distributed or sublicensed for a fee or for other valuable >consideration Agreed on this point -- the Apple fonts should be excised from the image in due course. -- Andrew C. Greenberg acg(a)netwolves.com V.P. Eng., R&D, 813.885.2779 (office) NetWolves Corporation 813.885.2380 (facsimile) www.netwolves.com Please use werdna(a)mucow.com instead of werdna(a)gate.net

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