Squeak-dev May 2001

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143 participants
597 discussions

Re: Squeakland Evolution project thingy
by Richard A. O'Keefe 31 May '01

31 May '01

I think I would agree here. I think I would change ... The process of evolution created the animals, both their bodies and their habits ... to read: ... It is likely that the process of evolution created the animals, both their bodies and their habits ... I'm sorry, but even that suggestions that there is one process of evolution (false) and that it consciously acted (false). Evolutionary processes include selection and random drift. I would suggest wording more like It is likely that both the bodies and the habits of animals are the outcome of evolutionary processes ... There is a building in Melbourne, "Melbourne Central". While it was a-building, they had a sign on it "The Spirit of Evolution". Doubly funny, really, because the "spirit" of evolution is death, disease, and disaster, and I'm sure they didn't want people thinking _that_ about their building! Computer "experiments" in evolution always tend to look highly contrived. The spider and its silk were not designed by any being. The process of evolution created the animals, both their bodies and their habits. Evolution is a very powerful process. Think of the great variety of wild plants and animals on the earth. All of them were created by evolution. --------- Note that we don't claim anything about "evolution being a designer". But you DO claim that evolution is a creater. The key idea in Darwinian evolution, as I understand it, is the "creative power" of selection, that is, animals that don't function don't breed, so that anything we see around us _has_ to be something that can function well enough to make a living, or it wouldn't be here. The main evidences for evolution are due to its limitations, not its powers: basically, you have to work with what you've got, "evolution" doesn't have the power to step in and make arbitrary patches. It's the _panda's_ clumsy thumb, not ours, that is persausive of evolution. It's the lingering bugs in Squeak that prove it wasn't written by God. A really convincing evolution simulation should illustrate something it _can't_ do.

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VMMaker and macintosh source.
by John M McIntosh 31 May '01

31 May '01

I'm pleased to say that I've integrated all the mac source into VMMaker. Fairly soon I'll issue the change sets which btw preserve the existing historically incorrect/mangled/muddled plugin names (sorry Tim) and post where the tar bar is for the tree. I realize of course the next big thing is to use CVS or something to update the tree, but I'll leave that for another day. Via VM maker you can now build (via codewarrior) a macintosh 68k VM macintosh PowerPC VM macintosh Carbon VM macintosh PowerPC Browser plugin macintosh PowerPC Carbon Browser plugin A Fat VM... Optionally you can build an Open Transport version for 68K if you get the correct files. I've also integrated in the Mpeg3Plugin FFIPlugin testOSAPlugin (applescript) as external plugins for PowerPC. In the past some of these have lurked as optional features if you could find an old plugin and/or figure out how to build your own. -- -- =========================================================================== John M. McIntosh <johnmci(a)smalltalkconsulting.com> 1-800-477-2659 Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com ===========================================================================

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Re: Wormhole Instability (was Why do things keep changing?)
by John Hinsley 31 May '01

31 May '01

"Noel J. Bergman" wrote: > "I figured that it was December 15th, 2018." > > Did I say December? <<raised eyebrow>> It hasn't been THAT long a day ... > <<sigh>> Obviously, I meant October. No, no, the Dates Soviet of the World People's Collective made the year Metric in 2010: April and November were abolished. Cheers John -- ****************************************************************************** Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?" Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft." ******************************************************************************

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Re: Syncronization primitives in Squeak??
by Bob Arning 31 May '01

31 May '01

Vasili, On Wed, 30 May 2001 17:18:20 -0700 (PDT) Galchin Vasili <vngalchin(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > 1) What multithreading capabilities exist in Squeak? > In which class? Check out the class Process plus methods like #fork and #forkAt: in BlockContext. > 2) What synchronization primitives? In which class? Semaphore. Methods like #signal, #wait and #critical: are especially useful. Cheers, Bob

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Syncronization primitives in Squeak??
by Galchin Vasili 31 May '01

31 May '01

Hello, 1) What multithreading capabilities exist in Squeak? In which class? 2) What synchronization primitives? In which class? Regards, Vasili N Galchin __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail - only $35 a year! http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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RE: Squeakland Evolution project thingy
by Noel J. Bergman 30 May '01

30 May '01

>>>If we had enough computing resources available, and a unified theory that >>>accurately models the forces of nature ... >> Great opportunity for a distributed processing experiment using Squeak. > Do you think we could get it working on PDAs? How do we beam/exchange arbitrary webs of objects? So what would the tagline be, to differentiate from SETI? Why only listen when you can (Small)talk, er, Squeak? --- Noel

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[OT] RE: Squeakland Evolution project thingy
by Jarvis, Robert P. (Contingent) 30 May '01

30 May '01

> -----Original Message----- > From: Noel J. Bergman [mailto:noel@devtech.com] > > For extremely funny linguistic silliness in a similar vein, I > refer you to Madrak the non-theist, non-sectarian preacher in > Creatures of Light & Darkness by Zelazny. <delurk> One of his lesser-known and better books. Just one observation on the "Intelligent Design"...<steady on, Bob>...*individuals*, and then I'll go back to quietly lurking again. Per the "Intelligent Design" <steady...> *individuals*, their perception or a "design" for the universe "requires" the presence of a "designer", i.e. a god or gods. However, by their own logic, the presence of said "designers" requires the presence of a creator of the designers. And the presence of the creator of the designers requires, by extension, the presence of a creator of the creator of the designers. Etc. Cogito'ing, one finds, ergo, an infinite sum. Or, as Pratchett puts it quite succinctly, "It's turtles all the way down". </delurk> Bob Jarvis Compuware @ Timken

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Re: Squeakland Evolution project thingy
by Fleeberz＠aol.com 30 May '01

30 May '01

Stephen wrote: >If we had enough computing resources available, and a unified theory that >accurately models the forces of nature, it would be fascinating to create >a >simulation of the universe from it's theorized point of origin (the big >bang?). It would be even more fascinating to see how long, and if, the >emergent intelligence in the simulation could re-create the same experiment. Great opportunity for a distributed processing experiment using Squeak. First, though, we'll need to get that unified theory worked out. Anyone up to improving the Method Finder? ;-) Flee P.S. Meant to reply to list; sorry for extra copy, Stephen(!)

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RE: Squeakland Evolution project thingy
by Noel J. Bergman 30 May '01

30 May '01

> [It] would be fascinating to create a simulation of the > universe from it's theorized point of origin. Personally, I'd be curious to see if, as I suggest, the Golden Rule actually turns out to be a survival trait. "Treat others as you'd have them treat you" as a survival strategy, which would imply that the development of morality can follow an evolutionary pattern. --- Noel

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Re: Squeakland Evolution project thingy
by Bob Hartwig 30 May '01

30 May '01

Alan, At 12:05 PM 5/30/2001 -0800, Alan Kay wrote: > >I think I would agree here. I think I would change > > ... The process of evolution created the animals, both their >bodies and their habits ... > > to read: > > ... It is likely that the process of evolution created the >animals, both their bodies and their habits ... > If you were to write an active essay about the heliocentricity of the solar system, would you insert "it is likely" before stating on the introductory page that the earth revolves around the sun and not vice-versa? -Bob

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