Squeak-dev July 2001

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168 participants
308 discussions

[FIX] CelesteOpenFix
by Steve Elkins 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

from preamble: "Change Set: CelesteOpenFix Date: 31 July 2001 Author: Steve Elkins A tweak to make sure the instance is returned when opening Celeste."!

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Re: StarSqueak (was: Bongo a Java for kids)
by Richard A. O'Keefe 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

John.Maloney(a)disney.com wrote: Anyone who's interested in simulations, especially simulations of biological systems, will find Mitchel's book: Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams: Explorations in Massively Parallel Microworlds (MIT Press, 1994) fascinating reading. After reading it, I just couldn't keep myself from implementing the core ideas in Squeak. I'd say the performance of the Java version says a lot about what's wrong with Java. The Mac version of StarLogo was written in Lisp, I believe, and it's quite fast. Let me second that. StarLogo is fun, and it's plenty fast enough, but the ideas in the book are even better.

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Re: Morphic Rolodex: Celeste class(Object)>>doesNotUnderstand:#isActive and arguments: #()
by Steve Elkins 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

Try the attached version of Celeste class>>openOn: or patch it yourself. The current last line is the problem. It reads self openOnDatabase: database but it should read ^ self openOnDatabase: database to get the instance returned instead of the class in the case where no instance of Celeste is open when 'Celeste current' is invoked.

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Re: FFI broken ?
by rob.van.den.berg＠philips.com 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

Henrik, part of the Squeak distribution is a SqueakFFIPrims.dll, which I assume contains the FFI primitives. I wish I could execute the 'Smalltalk listLoadedModules' after executing the statement 'Win32Shell explore: 'C:\'' there is no Squeak anymore: it crashes without warning or other message. If I execute this at startup I get the following list #('SoundGenerationPlugin 15 March 2001 (i)' 'SoundPlugin 15 March 2001 (i)' 'B2DPlugin 15 March 2001 (i)' 'FloatArrayPlugin 15 March 2001 (i)' 'Matrix2x3Plugin 15 March 2001 (i)' 'BitBltPlugin 15 March 2001 (i)' 'LargeIntegers v1.2 15 March 2001 (i)' 'SecurityPlugin 15 March 2001 (i)' 'FilePlugin 15 March 2001 (i)' 'MiscPrimitivePlugin 15 March 2001 (i)') regards, rob -_-__----__----___-----____---__-_-_-_____--___-- rob van den berg rob.van.den.berg(a)philips.com +31 40 27 63291 QJ-2317 Philips Medical Systems, Netherlands Henrik Gedenryd <Henrik.Gedenryd(a)lucs.lu.se>@lists.squeakfoundation.org on 30/07/2001 14:27:23 Please respond to squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org Sent by: squeak-dev-admin(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org To: <squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org> cc: (bcc: Rob van den Berg/BST/MS/PHILIPS) Subject: Re: FFI broken ? Classification: rob.van.den.berg(a)philips.com wrote: > Hi, > > I am trying to glue together my Squeak GUI with an existing Image processing > application for which I have written a dll for interfacing ( Yes, it's on > Windows). To make this work I wanted to use FFI. But just testing the examples > (Win32Shell) in the > latest Win32 Squeak distribution crashes Squeak with no error whatsoever: The > FFI call however (e.g Win32Shell explore: 'c;\') does get executed! What am I > doing wrong? > > regards, > > rob Rob, I don't use the Windows VM so I am not sure whether the FFI plugin is included in it (this is a security issue; on the Mac it is not included). What is the output if you printIt 'Smalltalk listLoadedModules' _after_ executing the failed FFI call? Henrik

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Re: Morphic Rolodex: Celeste class(Object)>>doesNotUnderstand:#isActive and arguments: #()
by Steve Elkins 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

John Hinsley <jhinsley(a)telinco.co.uk> wrote: > field. But if I type an email and try to send it, I get > > Celeste class(Object)>>doesNotUnderstand:aMessage: a Message with > selector: #isActive and arguments: #() An *instance* of Celeste does understand #isActive, but the class Celeste does not. If you need a little more help, please send a stack trace showing how the message was sent. The menu of the top pane of the debugger doesn't have 'copy stack', but 'file out' or 'mail out bug report' will give you the text to send. If you choose the 2nd, make sure the list address is the current one. HTH, Steve

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Hybris virus?
by Hans-Martin Mosner 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

Hello, this is the second time that I got the hybris virus/worm from someone in Argentina. Since I suspect that this might have been caused by my mails to the squeak list, I urge all argentinians on this list to look at these headers and check whether the virus might have come from their computer. Cheers, Hans-Martin ---- Received: from bird2.de.uu.net (bird2.de.uu.net [193.101.111.28]) by bird.de.uu.net (5.5.5/5.5.5) with ESMTP id WAA12458 for <hm.mosner(a)cityweb.de>; Mon, 30 Jul 2001 22:20:07 +0200 (MET DST) Received: from ale (host052180.arnet.net.ar [200.45.52.180]) by bird2.de.uu.net (5.5.5/5.5.5) with SMTP id WAA24722 for <hm.mosner(a)cityweb.de>; Mon, 30 Jul 2001 22:19:57 +0200 (MET DST) Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 22:19:57 +0200 (MET DST) Message-Id: <200107302019.WAA24722(a)bird2.de.uu.net> From: Hahaha <hahaha(a)sexyfun.net> Subject: Enanito si, pero con que pedazo! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="--VE01IVSDIBO5UBWTIJ0PM7SPEZSDEFKHMN" X-Mozilla-Status: 8001 X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 X-UIDL: 29341

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RE: The goal of K-12 CS education
by G.J.Tielemans＠dinkel.utwente.nl 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

> -----Original Message----- > From: Alan Kay [mailto:Alan.Kay@squeakland.org] > Sent: maandag 30 juli 2001 19:06 > To: squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org > Subject: RE: The goal of K-12 CS education > > > For a minute let's not worry about satisfying official school > systems, and worry just about teaching "real math" and "real > science". (I use these terms because in the US "math" and "science" > have been "colonized" to actually mean "fake math" and "fake > science". And let's suppose we are interested in having the children > actually learn a strong combination of the two. > > There are some very interesting implications that arise from these > goals. One is that we should try to help children develop "uncommon > sense" (instead of the 80,000 year old common sense that most > cultures bestow). We especially would like the uncommon sense to > include both the epistemological stance of science towards knowledge > and knowing, and also a large toolbox of modern heuristic methods for > thinking, having ideas, and colliding theories. > How deep and how early this adaptation to common sense math takes place: - Ask a child that starts with math: " 3 melons and 2 melons makes..?" - the child will answer 5 - Then ask the same child again: " 3 million and 2 million makes..? - The child will answer: "I don't have learned that yet.." - you can in an endless loop repeat these questions an get the same answers. You can even play an adapted form of this context-game with math-teachers: - Ask them on wich age children learn 2 + 3? - Ask them then the learning age of 2 + . = 5 - Ask them if you may replace the dot with a flower and if this does change the age - Ask them then if you may replace it with a bucket? age does not change. - Then ask them if you may replace it by any other thing and if that would affect age.. No.. - Then propose 2 + x = 5 - O NO... that is algebra, that is secondary school stuff? - Why, you say x is just a container to hold a digit like x is... (depending of their teacher training you can convince them. > If we could come up with a "new math" that included them (a) new math > of complex internally interacting systems, and (b) a new math for > differential vector geometry and quasi-linear relationships, whose > foundations can be taught to children as play, then we might be able > to make some progress. > In the seventies we had in Holland a movement called the critical teachers, as a spin-off it did end in The Freudenthal-Math-institute. They try for years to change Dutch-math in the direction you whish, the even sold there products to the US. Acceptance for their real-life-and-also-fun-maths does still not reach all schools. > Simply put: objects in relationship is a nice way to do (a), and > turtle geometry with costumes is a nice way to do (b). > I think that especially the direct visual feedback does the work.. > Where the play gets applied and transferred is in the gradual > escalation of the systems that can be modeled. Just the simple car > with "car forward 5, car turn 5" is the differential vector geometry > expression of a circle (as can easily be seen if the pen of the car > is dropped). Each constant differential vector is added (the loop > acts the part of the integral sign) and the result is an expression > for constant curvature (a circle) whose derivative, the change in > curvature, is 0. > We had ots of discussions about LOGO in the 80-s. A difficult one about Vartesian was that LOGO works well for symetric forms, but doing the same for more irregular forms took away all this repeat and recusive power... it seemed easier in a cartesian frame... > Now the few children who even get to calculus do not usually learn > this in the US because the pathway is Cartesian coordinate, numeric > and algebraic. What Papert proposed to do years ago was to simply > start the kids off on the precursors for modern mathematical thinking > in science. > Yes I remeber that feeling of magic in numbers: changing numbers in these drawing formula's did create marvellous drwaings, others did not, children where looking for patterns in numbers... I think that was a level to high. > When the child hooks the steering wheel into the car (via dragging > the "steer's heading" tile into the "car turn by 5" tile) they are > painlessly learning about variables and why variables are a great > idea. > What I like in your explanation on the list about the wrong speed and the introduction of a gear was that you did show how subtile the tuning of these learning-settings really is. After years of working on learning environments of all kind, I got the feeling that what teachers are looking for is a tool they can tune for THEIR children in THEIR class in THAT specific year. I did call this new approach to muy colleguaes, with an apology of misusing a computer-concept: late-binding-educational-software. Can you imagine how thrilled I was that you, mister dynabook himself, did use the term ExtremeLateBinding in the book of Mark I am reading now in my holiday. From now on I cite Your XLP-idea, without any apology. (I am also realistic about teachers, even on a university, so I (let) design tools that support their bad habits, so they like it and use it... and then - little by little, using for example cues in fill-in forms that support their habits, I try to reorganize the flow of their habits.. no longer fighting them from the baricades of IT-innovation.) > When the child makes the car into a robot car that can follow a track > by itself, they are learning the powerful idea of feedback that is so > central to animal and mechanical controls systems that don't have > complete knowledge. The next stage of this is to make a gradient > follower and now they can model what salmon, clownfish, and ants do > in critical phases of their existence. > Who organizes for them this learning-path in your approach? In the Netherlands we had a lonesome professor van Pareren, preaching for many many years the Russian Learning theory of Vygotsky: the learning-zones nearest to a childs deveopment. (The man did die lonesome, recently we have this revival of the look-alike: constructivism) > The combination of science (trying to understand cause and effect > "out there") and math (trying to model useful and interesting > relationships) is extremely powerful. > > So the possibilities for transfer are both large and successful if > the further curriculum is also in accord with modern math/science. > (We have been doing this for 30 years now and have seen much > convincing evidence.) The difficulty with getting this stuff going in > the US has primarily been the lack of any kind of math preparation on > the part of K-8 teachers. (Also, for political reasons the math and > science groups do NOT cooperate in the US very much.) This is a huge > problem. > I have a background in psycholgie. When I enterde the faculty of educational technology I did discover that these people, even on the subject of psychologie did read other books and did have other heroes than we the as psycholgists... So it does not sound so strange to me. > In any case, those who are interested in this stuff will find quite a > bit in the current Squeak to this end. > Yes, that is the fun I did rediscover. Now I only have to convince all these university colleguas. For a start I decide to learn Squeak (and Swiki) for myself in freetime, then I will construct some prototypes - tackling UML, XML, IMS on the fly - and then... O my, I think that I need at least an educational leave or so for that. > Cheers, > > Alan > > At 4:08 PM +0200 7/30/01, G.J.Tielemans(a)dinkel.utwente.nl wrote: > >-----Original Message----- > >From: Alan Kay [mailto:Alan.Kay@squeakland.org] > >Sent: maandag 30 juli 2001 16:12 > >To: squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org > >Subject: Re: The goal of K-12 CS education > > > > > >Do you folks realize that every Player (the automatic wrapping of a > >morph for kids) in Squeak is a turtle? Get the handles by cmd-click, > >then click on the blue eye to see the viewer, then look in the > >category called "pen use". Change pen down to true. > > > >Cheers, > > > >Alan > > > >> OK Alan, the problem of transfer: Suppose I learn in > Squeakland to build a > >car and automatic run a track with the color-under-command. > Where can I > >apply this knowledge outsite track-racing or other kinds of > mazes (like the > >moving robot.) What can help me to come to better transfer from this > >knowledge-molecule? > > > -- > >

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Morphic Rolodex: Celeste class(Object)>>doesNotUnderstand:#isActive and arguments: #()
by John Hinsley 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

Hi all First the background. I'm rebuilding an instance of my Morphic Rolodex in 3.1a with the latest changesets 4173. The idea is to have everything up and running before I move on to try and write the autodialler. I've got a book morph with all the addresses in, a search button, and an email field (essentially a Show Empty Text Morph re-labelled). A button is scripted from this field. The idea is that if pressed, the button pops up an instance of Celeste and Mister Postman with the to: field completed. Ned Konz contributed the following code to perform this (pasted in the textual code pane of the script) | message | message _ 'mailto:', (self costume contents string ). message asUrl activate (take a peek at http://www.penguin-home.telinco.co.uk/Rolodex_Project/ to follow the story in words and pictures!) Now, I think this code worked just fine with previous changesets (I think I last tried it in 3.0). And Ned doesn't flunk. The button does pop up a Celeste and Mister Postman with the email address in the to: field. But if I type an email and try to send it, I get Celeste class(Object)>>doesNotUnderstand:aMessage: a Message with selector: #isActive and arguments: #() I'm stumped by this. Utterly and completely stumped. Ideas, brain transplants, welcome! Cheers John -- ****************************************************************************** Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?" Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft." ******************************************************************************

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Re: struggling with Celeste
by danielv＠netvision.net.il 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

Hmm, actually, that's what I do all the time, I just never saw it as anything but normal. > a. Wildly counter intuitive (in effect I'm sending the same password > twice to the same agent). Logically, maybe, yes. Physically, though, the two logins are probably two different server programs (say, pppd calling login, and the pop server (Telinco)) checking the same password database. Note that TCP/IP doesn't generally require authentication, it's applications that do. > b. Terminologically dubious (is my ISP password a Pop 3 password?). See above. > But there may be design decisions here which I'm completely unaware of. Maybe, but I don't think that any of them are part of Celeste - just the server software. If netscape doesn't require you to enter a password to access your mail, then it's probably cheating (assuming the password is the one it sent to the dialer, and getting lucky). I for one, access my mail on pop server belonging to ISP A while connected through ISP B, so if I find Netscape let's me access my mail without entering my password, I'll get pretty mad ;-) I'd check again that you don't have a profile defined where you once did enter your password. Daniel John Hinsley <jhinsley(a)telinco.co.uk> wrote: > Steve Elkins wrote: > > > > John Hinsley <jhinsley(a)telinco.co.uk> wrote: > > > > [about problems using Celeste] > > > > > Do I need to do anything to the PopSocket? > > > > I've never had to. > > > > > When Celeste requests my password, is it looking for a higher level > > > authentification than my (ISP style) username? > > > > Just making sure, should the last word of your question be "password" > > instead of "username"? I supply the same username and password > > (and they are not the same strings) to Celeste that I supply to Netscape. > > All goes well. > > > > But I'm only guessing at what your problem might be. > > Well, I'm only guessing too! > > I should point out that this in on Linux, so there might just be other > issues floating about (usually are!). > > AFAIK. I've never entered anything in the Netscape dialogue strings > apart from the name of my pop3 server, the dotted quad of my SMTP > server, my email address and my user name. So, when using fetch mail in > Celeste opens up a "fill in the gaps" asking for my pop 3 password, I > was entering my username. > > *I've just tried it using my ISP password (the one which wvdial uses) > and it works!* > > This strikes me as > > a. Wildly counter intuitive (in effect I'm sending the same password > twice to the same agent). > > b. Terminologically dubious (is my ISP password a Pop 3 password?). > > But there may be design decisions here which I'm completely unaware of. > (After all, Windows and maybe Mac sort of bundle the whole connection > routine into one whole.) > > But thanks for the guess Steve, it set me off in the "right" direction! > > Cheers > > John > > > -- > ****************************************************************************** > Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?" > Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft." > ******************************************************************************

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RE: Developing RPG (Tile-based graphics with transparency)
by G.J.Tielemans＠dinkel.utwente.nl 31 Jul '01

31 Jul '01

RPG: RolePlayGame or IF: InteractiveFiction... It has a long history, going back to the 80-s (The days of Apple-II and Tandy model-I and even before that: a good overview of the history and the diverse programs of the past and present is available at: ftp://ftp.gmd.de/if-archive/ Core of these programs is handling natural language, placed in fantasy-settings: "You are in a dark wood, at your left you see an old house, on your right you hear a waterfall.. what will you do next? My favorite is: Inform, also documented at: http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/inform/index.html Because is has this same platform-independancy of a virtual machine I also like in Smalltalk & Squeak: "....The Z-machine is an imaginary computer, created in 1979, which has never existed as circuitry. Instead, almost every real computer built in the 1980s and 1990s has been taught to pretend to be a Z-machine. The usefulness of this is that Inform's story files (the actual games which players play) run on the Z-machine, so it follows that a Z-machine interpreter is just what you need to play Inform games. The Z-machine was invented by Joel Berez, Marc Blank and others working at the Infocom corporation, so it also runs Infocom's justly famous works of interactive fiction...." There are also trials of combining the language parser with sound & graphic scenes.... Wouldn't it be nice to combine the power of Squeak with this virtual Z-machine? -----Original Message----- From: Richard Clemens [mailto:clemens@wvwc.edu] Sent: zondag 29 juli 2001 14:54 To: squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org Subject: Re: Developing RPG (Tile-based graphics with transparency) > I don't know what an RPG is Or an old "programming language." Actually more accurately a set of coding sheets that allows the "easy" creation of reports from data files. Used many of the same terms/concepts as COBOL but without the ability to do much real "coding." A later version was called RPG II.

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