Squeak-dev April 2005

squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

158 participants
287 discussions

Clusters, grids and Squeak
by Darren Hobbs 22 Apr '05

22 Apr '05

Hi, Loath as I am to continue in the multiprocess / multithreading vein, I'm going to anyway :-) We're starting to see machines like these appear in the market: http://www.orionmulti.com/products/ There is a significant amount of hype & interest in clusters and grid computing at the moment. It seems the pendulum that swung towards bigger faster servers during the web-boom is now starting to swing back the other way as companies realise they have vast amounts of computing power sitting idle on people's desks. It seems clear that massive parallelism is on a rapid rise, and I believe that there is scope for significant innovation in this area in the next couple of years. My opinion (nascent as it is) is that making the VM multithreaded at the OS-level is probably not the best way to go, as it would break a lot of code, and fundamentally change the behaviour of the scheduling model. I like the fact that the Smalltalk VM really is a virtual machine, in the sense that its process management is implemented in Smalltalk. Having said that, I do think that it would be a significant coup for Squeak and Smalltalk in general if a way was found to make it easy to build applications that could make efficient use of a 96-way box :-) I suspect that launching 96 images at the moment might be somewhat unfeasible, as an out of the box image takes about 25 meg of memory, so starting 1 per cpu would eat 2.4 Gigs before you've even started! What might work is starting one headfull image to act as task coordinator, and devise a way to launch a bunch of very cut-down headless 'worker' images. The kind of client code that I'm imagining might look like this: 95 timesRepeat: [GridWorkerProcess new]. GridScheduler allWorkersDo:[MyComputeIntensiveGridTask new]. Obviously that is a simplistic example, but a general grid computing framework could have many uses, including a native-Smalltalk alternative to technologies like fastCGI for running web applications on multiprocessor boxes. I am cheerfully unfettered by any knowledge of how impossible this idea might be, so thoughts and comments are sought! Regards, -Darren

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RE: Clusters, grids and Squeak
by Dean_Swan＠Mitel.COM 22 Apr '05

22 Apr '05

Would you be referring to things like Rodney Brooks's subsumption architecture? Very impressive work, but as I recall he was using "really" small microcontrollers like 68HC11, where even Craig's 'Spoon' work would be too big. -Dean "Joaquin Sitte" <j.sitte(a)qut.edu.au> Sent by: squeak-dev-bounces(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org 04/19/2005 08:38 PM Please respond to The general-purpose Squeak developers list To: <squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org> cc: Subject: RE: Clusters, grids and Squeak >What might work is starting one headfull image to act as task >coordinator, and devise a way to launch a bunch of very cut-down >headless 'worker' images. This is precisely what is needed for applications in robotics, where numerous low power processors do sensor signal processing and/or actuator control. Multitasking is replaced by parallel distributed computing making real time response easier to achieve with much less software overhead. I would like to hear from those doing work on Squeak in that direction. Joaquin ===================================================== Dr. Joaquin Sitte, Associate Professor. School of Software Engineering and Data Communication Faculty of Information Technology Queensland University of Technology GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, Q 4001 Australia Phone +61 7 3864 9325 Fax +61 7 3864 9390 e-mail j.sitte(a)qut.edu.au homepage http://www.fit.qut.edu.au/~sitte

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Re: web browsers (was: squeak laptop for the rest of us)
by Jon Hylands 22 Apr '05

22 Apr '05

On Mon, 18 Apr 2005 21:10:44 -0300 , Jecel Assumpcao Jr <jecel(a)merlintec.com> wrote: > What IE does, you mean. There are quite a few pages where I can't read > the text in Mozilla because it flows under some picture. This is a case > of the browser being right and the site wrong, no doubt, but it does > make things more complicated for the user. Normally I just go on to > another page, but if it is important then I'll select all the text and > copy it to another window. With a proper Squeak browser I would expect > to be able to call up the halo on the offending item and force it to be > readable. When I wrote the web browser at Interval in Squeak back in 1997/98, probably 80% of my time was spent trying to compensate for bad, poorly-formed HTML. I don't expect things have gotten much better in the intervening years, but perhaps more people use tools now to do layout. Its an enourmous part of the job, and you would do well to factor a significant percentage of your total development effort to it. Later, Jon -------------------------------------------------------------- Jon Hylands Jon(a)huv.com http://www.huv.com/jon Project: Micro Seeker (Micro Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) http://www.huv.com

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Re: 3.8/3.9 Divergence
by Dean_Swan＠Mitel.COM 21 Apr '05

21 Apr '05

Hi Doug, Running concurrent development streams without a very strong management structure is just asking for trouble. We do this on some projects at my day job, and it is always a struggle to pull changes forward from a numerically lower version that was being worked on simultaneously. IMO, 3.8gamma should have been frozen and declared "final" before people launched into 3.9 alpha. When something is declared "gamma", to me, that should mean that "This is essentially the final release except for fixing show stopping bugs reported in the gamma build." or something similar. Why is there no "3.8 final" yet, and why is there a "3.9 alpha" and changes still being made to both? I find the current state of affairs troubling, and have just stuck with 3.7 for anything I am working on until sanity returns to Squeak development. It seems like 3.8 has been going on for quite a long time now (i.e. > 6 months). Andreas is a very smart guy, but either 3.8 isn't really in "gamma", or his refactoring should not be in the 3.8 "gamma" stream. There are too many open questions for this refactoring to go into a "gamma" build, . Mind you, I like his refactoring, but I think this is more a question of development process. It seems that this refactoring is more of an improvement than a fix for show stoppers, so it shouldn't go into a stream that is supposedly in "gamma", no? Am I misunderstanding the meaning of "gamma" for Squeak development streams? -Dean Doug Way <dway(a)mailcan.com> Sent by: squeak-dev-bounces(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org 04/16/2005 05:47 PM Please respond to The general-purpose Squeak developers list To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org> cc: Subject: Re: 3.8/3.9 Divergence I think the current situation is somewhat unusual, in that a major update (the String refactoring) was added to a x.y beta/gamma release, but not added to the following x.y+1 alpha release. In this case I think it was warranted... basically there were already some major changes to String made early in 3.8alpha (because of m17n), so if we're going to revamp those changes, we should really try to do it in the same release if at all possible. (So we don't have 3.7 with old-style Strings, 3.8 with major String changes, and 3.9 with yet more major String changes.) Even if this means delaying 3.8 a bit. And also, there will be 3.8.1, 3.8.2 etc releases which can contain bug fixes. Actually, I don't think 3.9alpha had really diverged that much from 3.8gamma (before the String changes)... the only major change was Diego's look changes, but a lot of that was just image/preference changes. So I don't think it will be too hard to port the String changes forward from 3.8gamma to 3.9alpha. I guess the idea is to hammer out the (String change) problems in the 3.8gamma version before porting it forward to 3.9alpha. So in summary, I don't think this will be a particularly common situation. - Doug On Apr 15, 2005, at 2:25 PM, Ken Causey wrote: > As Bert's chart on http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/275 shows the > sequence of updates between for 3.8 and 3.9 is quite complicated. At > times (including now) we've had a situation where there are updates in > the 3.8 update stream that are not in the 3.9 update stream. Now maybe > I just haven't been paying much attention in the past but this is not a > common occurrence in the history of Squeak development I don't believe. > Right now it is causing us in the Janitors team a bit of a headache as > it's a bit of a toss up at times to what image a given fix may or may > not apply. We've had a policy of testing everything against a fully > updated 3.9 image and this has been fine in general but is right now a > problem with all the String updates that are in 3.8 but not in 3.9. > > What I'm wondering is whether we expect this to be a more common > situation in the future than it has been in the past. To be more > explicit do we expect it to be not uncommon in the future for there to > be a situation in which y.x has some number of updates that y.(x+1) > does > not? If so then we (Janitors and friends) will need to plan for this I > think. > > Ken >

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[ANN] new website for squeak.org in beta :)
by stéphane ducasse 21 Apr '05

21 Apr '05

Hi guys We have been working to get a new website for squeak (thanks pavel, alex and the others...) Please have a look at http://box1.squeakfoundation.org:7777/ Now before commenting, turn twice your tongue in your mouth...because if you have extra smart ideas then we will need your time too. :) This is a wiki and we can distribute the responsibilities but at the end we should have a cool web site. We do not consider this as the final version and are ready to let you make changes but we need a kind of control quality Stef

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Question: VM and DirectFB (Direct Framebuffer)
by Rene Pavlik 21 Apr '05

21 Apr '05

Hi, anyone heard about Squeak running on DirectFB (Direct Framebuffer)? I'm looking for such VM that can use DirectFB for acceleration of Squeak graphics. Does it exist? Thanks lot. -- Rene

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Smalltalk Coding Contest Reminder
by Jason Jones 21 Apr '05

21 Apr '05

All, The Smalltalk Industry Council (http://www.stic.org <http://www.stic.org/> ) is pleased to announce the first annual 2005 Smalltalk Solutions Smalltalk Coding Contest. The Smalltalk Solutions Technical Conference will be held in Orlando June 27-29, 2005 and will serve as the home for the coding competition finale. Smalltalk Solutions is the premier forum for bringing together Smalltalk users, developers, vendors, and enthusiasts. Coding contest prizes include: 1st round of the competition The top 3 ranked in no particular order will receive a free conference registration and a free membership to STIC 2nd Round of the Competition 1st Place - $1,000 USD to be used towards a future Camp Smalltalk attendance 2nd Place - iPod 3rd Place- iPod shuffle Each of the finalists of the first portion of the contest will receive a Smalltalk Solutions 2005 conference registration valued at $670 USD as well as a complimentary individual membership to the STIC. This does not include travel, lodging meals, tutorials, or any other fees associated with the conference attendance. Please note, in order to compete in the second round of the contest, finalists must be able to attend the conference. The second round of the contest will consist of the three highest ranking contestants who are able to attend the 2005 Smalltalk Solutions conference. The Smalltalk Solutions Coding Competition is broken into two phases of competition. The first phase begins on Monday, May 16 at 9 a.m. EST and ends on Wednesday, May 18 at 9 a.m. EST running for 48 consecutive hours. Registration will begin March 1 and participants must register for the competition online at www.stic.org <http://www.stic.org/> by May 13 at 6 p.m. EST. Confirmed registrants will receive the requirements for the first phase online. All coding must be done in Smalltalk. The problem will require a web application. Client GUIs will not be acceptable solutions. Conference registration is not required to participate in the first phase of the competition. Please note, in order to compete in the second round of the contest, finalists must be able to attend the conference. The second round of the contest will consist of the three highest ranking contestants who are able to attend the 2005 Smalltalk Solutions conference. One representative from each of the four board member companies consisting of Cincom Systems, GemStone, IBM, and Knowledge Systems Corporation will judge the first phase of the competition. Each submission will be submitted to the judges as blind submissions and a total of three (3) winners will be selected to compete onsite at Smalltalk Solutions 2005 in Orlando, Florida. The winners of the first phase will be announced on June 1, 2005 on the Smalltalk Industry Council web site. The second and final phase of the competition will take place on Sunday, June 26, 2005 from 6 p.m. to10 p.m. onsite at the Wyndham Orlando during Smalltalk Solutions pre-registration. The details of the second phase of the competition will not be released to the finalists until the competition begins. Prize winners will be announced during the keynote general session on Wednesday, June 29, 2005. Contact: Jason Jones Smalltalk Industry Council 1143 Executive Circle Suite G Cary, NC 27511 Phone: 919-789-8549 http://www.stic.org <http://www.stic.org/> http://www.smalltalksolutions.com <http://www.smalltalksolutions.com/> jsj(a)ksc.com iPod and iPod shuffle are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc.

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Harvesting Party Monday April 25th 17:00 GMT
by Ken Causey 21 Apr '05

21 Apr '05

Just a reminder that the next Harvesting Party will take place between 17:00 (5 PM) and 21:00 (9 PM) GMT Monday April 25th, 2005. As usual we will meet in #squeak on irc.freenode.net. More information about the #squeak IRC channel can be found at http://people.squeakfoundation.org/article/7.html Information about the Harvesting Party idea can be found at http://people.squeakfoundation.org/article/29.html If you have the time please attend and work toward the future of Squeak. The next seven parties are scheduled for 21:00 (09:00 PM) GMT Friday April 29, 2005 01:00 (01:00 AM) GMT Wednesday May 04, 2005 05:00 (05:00 AM) GMT Sunday May 08, 2005 09:00 (09:00 AM) GMT Thursday May 12, 2005 13:00 (01:00 PM) GMT Monday May 16, 2005 17:00 (05:00 PM) GMT Friday May 20, 2005 21:00 (09:00 PM) GMT Tuesday May 24, 2005

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C header parser
by Pablo Iaria 21 Apr '05

21 Apr '05

Hi all, Some time ago (a few weeks I think) some one sent a package to this list. That package also had a parser of C header files to generate the squeak ffi calling interface. Does anyone remember the name of that package? Thanks! Pablo.-

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Question: Does the VM send messages in order to send messages?
by Peter Suk 21 Apr '05

21 Apr '05

Hello, A question about the Squeak VM internals I'd like to ask, since it would probably be quick to ask and slower to read the code. (But a pointer to code would also be appreciated.) Does the VM send Smalltalk messages in order to resolve Smalltalk messages? Or does it just dereference pointers? In particular, I'm interested in how the VM walks the Class hierarchy and reaches into Method Dictionaries to resolve message sends. --Peter -- There's neither heaven nor hell, save what we grant ourselves. There's neither fairness nor justice, save what we grant each other.

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