Squeak-dev August 2007

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132 participants
163 discussions

Using the .NET Bridge to access MS Office applications
by Fred (Frederik Vandendriessche) 01 Sep '07

01 Sep '07

Hi, Can anyone share a sample of how to use the .NET bridge to interact with MS Office applications? I've got the basics working as described on - http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/3773 - http://www.saltypickle.com/squeakDotNet But as an inexperienced COM developer, I fail to advance much. Any and all suggestions much appreciated. -- Kind regards / Met vriendelijke groeten, Frederik Vandendriessche http://ooos.redirectme.net/FrederikAGVandendriessche

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Pipe syntax and the current methods
by merlyn＠stonehenge.com 01 Sep '07

01 Sep '07

Would any of the "pipe" advocates mind taking a stab at the *current* source methods, and rewrite the method showing how pipe syntax would have simplified or clarified the method? I ask this because I suspect that if you're following good practices (such as those adovocated in Beck's "Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns"), you won't actually *need* a pipe syntax, because your code would never have gotten that complicated. So, instead of writing Smalltalk with a bias for your previous programming language where pipe makes more sense, how about taking some *native* Smalltalk to show how pipe would have helped? -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 <merlyn(a)stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/> Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!

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pipe
by Jerome Peace 01 Sep '07

01 Sep '07

Hi all, Well, now that the issue has gotten a well and noisy airing on the mailing list. Who wants to start the mantis issue so the good work here can get harvested? Yours in curiosity and service, --Jerome Peace P.S. I'm +1 on the ';;' syntax. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Choose the right car based on your needs. Check out Yahoo! Autos new Car Finder tool. http://autos.yahoo.com/carfinder/

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Re: pipe (scaling image)
by Kevin Driedger 31 Aug '07

31 Aug '07

Sebastian, this is a neat idea could you give just a little bit more detail on how the objects are mapped into the SQL database? I can only guess that you mean that they are somehow chunked into blobs and persisted. ]{evin > > Sebastian Sastre wrote: >> But an image can be scaled in a farm of servers. A persistent >> Smalltalk can >> have valuable objects transparently stored in a shareable support. >> I've implemented in Squeak a *proof of concept* of this idea in a system >> that can store in a relational database the objects without having to >> map >> classes to tables. It uses the same intention that the VM uses to store >> objects in RAM. It uses the RDBMS as if it where an analogy of the >> RAM. I >> based the design on the blue book. The idea is not original Sun has >> played >> with something like this for Java. >> >> Every instar value you change in an object is made ACIDly. Is slow >> because >> the support is slow. Write and read barriers can help a lot. Concurrency >> also should be managed. >> >> But you can make a really big image with this by scaling it as much as >> PostgreSQL can scale. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Sebastian Sastre >> >> >> >>> -----Mensaje original----- >>> De: squeak-dev-bounces(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org >>> [mailto:squeak-dev-bounces@lists.squeakfoundation.org] En nombre de >>> Marcel Weiher >>> Enviado el: Miércoles, 29 de Agosto de 2007 20:51 >>> Para: The general-purpose Squeak developers list >>> Asunto: Re: pipe >>> >>> >>> On Aug 26, 2007, at 3:10 AM, Fabio Filasieno wrote: >>> >>> >>>>> Smalltalk is very different - you always can add behaviour >>> you need >>>>> to the other object and the application logic is >>> distributed across >>>>> the system. >>>>> >>>> That's not the point, but you are right, Unix and Smalltalk are >>>> different. >>>> In regard to the black boxes thing. >>>> >>> I think a lot of the differences are superficial, but one seems very >>> deep: Unix's unifying principle is extensional, Smalltalk intensional. >>> >>> That is, Unix gets its power from the fact that everything is just >>> represented as bytes, and you can pipe those around. Who cares what >>> they mean? To the refined tastes of us Smalltalkers that seems >>> barbaric, but it is very powerful in a very pragmatic sort of way, >>> and gets you extremely loose coupling and late binding (of things >>> other than the fact that it's all just bytes). Of course, you lose >>> moving to higher levels of abstraction, and no, XML doesn't really >>> do it. >>> >>> Smalltalk, on the other hand, does really well with modelling >>> semantics, as objects sending messages, but has a hard time >>> extending its unifying principle outside the image. Which is >>> somewhat ironic considering the idea was connecting things and late, >>> late binding. >>> >>> Marcel >>> >>> >>> >> >> >> >> > >

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[OT] How to configure gcc on Mac (For VMMaker)
by Mathieu Suen 31 Aug '07

31 Aug '07

Hi, I am on Mac and I try to compile the VM for exupery. With Bryce we had some problems with gcc 4.0.1 (From Xcode) when the optimization was turn on. So now I would like to use gcc 4.2. From Mac port I have install gcc 4.2.1. Then I have changed the link /usr/bin/gcc to point to /opt/local/bin/ gcc-mp-4.2. But I have some linker error. I suppose that the linker is not well configure. Dose any one know how to configure gcc? Thanks Mth ___________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Mail r�invente le mail ! D�couvrez le nouveau Yahoo! Mail et son interface r�volutionnaire. http://fr.mail.yahoo.com

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Squeak-Linux package: A problematic signal
by Heiko Schroeder 31 Aug '07

31 Aug '07

Dear list, it is not the problem that I can get Squeak running under Linux. But think about interested users or even programmers who want to get a glimpse of Squeak 3.9.8 according to decision which environment is best -- and of course newbies as well -- what will they get? a.) An INSTALL-script which works. OK It is said that it is heavily recommended not to move files around. OK b.) With the next instruction the tragedy begins: It is recommended to invoke *inisqueak*. And -- inisqueak ist missing. Ups, don't they test their packages? c.) While reading the manpage of inisqueak it is politely offered to write a mail to the author Ian Piumarta. Great work, this site, but the address is wrong. d.) You remember that there was a second adress in the INSTALL-file for Ian. It is wrong too.. e.) Then you try to invoke Squeak by squeak, not inisqueak. Perhaps this succeeds. Of course a message arrives with the first suggestion: Copy the image and the change file into your current directory. To say it clearly, please apologize my hard words: Do you think it might be possible that the interested user asks himself: *Is this a hobby programmer group or are there any real professionals at work?* Sorry, but think about one who gets the first contact to Squeak while working under Linux. Although all the effort is done by free will: Independent from that, wrong information is worse than no information. Therefore, if time is lacking, it would be better to comment nothing. Next: The still interested user will have a look on the website and gets -- a splendid website! Great! And there is a category: Installation. Windows -- although I never observed the slightest problems -- is described in detail. Mac as well. Linux or Unix -- nothing. *Ah, this is the point.* Bye, bye. Let us turn over to GNU Smalltalk or X/Smalltalk. If you want to get acquainted to a highly acclaimed software like Squeak, and face these avoidable problems, which have their roots in some basic attitudes, I am afraid that it is a sign of healthy imagination to believe that Linux users always try to figure out what the *author could have meant if he would have had the time to express what he really means*. Sorry, but I figured out that the problem with inisqueake, e.g. was reported already by a user in March, and it seems as if there has no changing taken place. I do not think that such an outstanding software like Squeak deserves it. Regards Heiko -- Heiko Schroeder Praha, Ceska Republica http://home.foni.net/~heikos http://www.od.shuttle.de/evb-1

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Win32 VM Update & Request for help
by Andreas Raab 31 Aug '07

31 Aug '07

Hi Folks - I've done two interesting improvements to the Win32 VM mostly for production uses. First, fetch the latest Windows VM from: http://squeakvm.org/win32/release/SqueakVM-Win32-3.10.5-bin.zip and run it. Aaaahhhh! What a nice splash screen ;-) The reason for the (optional) splash screen is that I finally got beaten into delaying the main window creation up until the point when there is something to show but unfortunately this also leads to the problem that if the time to show something interesting is a couple of seconds there is no user-visible feedback about the application launch, so the splash screen support became necessary (shame on the Mac VM for delaying window creation without splash screen! ;-) Of course, not being the artist myself, I'd appreciate a nicer looking splash screen by someone a little more artistically inclined, and that could mean fame and ... err ... fame for you! (see also http://squeakvm.org/win32/settings.html for the updated documentation on the splash screen settings) The other relevant production improvement in this VM are a few new system attributes which report very detailed information about the current platform: * Smalltalk getSystemAttribute: 10001 Reports detailed hardware information, for example: Hardware information: Manufacturer: Panasonic Model: R5 Number of processors: 1 Page size: 4096 Memory Information (upon launch): Physical Memory Size: 1038384 kbytes Physical Memory Free: 330896 kbytes Page File Size: 1987776 kbytes Page File Free: 1332884 kbytes Virtual Memory Size: 2097024 kbytes Virtual Memory Free: 1931968 kbytes Memory Load: 68 percent Processor 0: Genuine Intel(R) CPU U1400 @ 1.20GHz Identifier: x86 Family 6 Model 14 Stepping 8 ~MHZ: 1197 * Smalltalk getSystemAttribute: 10002 Reports detailed OS information, for example: Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP (Build 2600 Service Pack 2) Registered Owner: Registered Company: SP major version: 2 SP minor version: 0 Suite mask: 100 Product type: 1 * Smalltalk getSystemAttribute: 10003 Reports detailed Graphics information, for example: Display Information: Graphics adapter name: Mobile Intel(R) 945GM/GU Express Chipset Family Primary monitor resolution: 1024 x 768 Device: Mobile Intel(R) 945GM/GU Express Chipset Family Adapter String: Mobile Intel(R) 945GM/GU Express Chipset Family Bios String: Intel Video BIOS Chip Type: Intel(R) GMA 950 DAC Type: Internal Memory Size: 0x08000000 Driver Versions: igxprd32: 6.14.10.4785 All of the above can be extremely helpful if you need to find out about a problem and, perhaps most importantly, the information is also written in crash.dmp if the Squeak VM ever crashes. This information has allowed us to successfully debug a few problems that would be otherwise very hard to find. As usual, the sources for this version are up on squeakvm.org as well: http://squeakvm.org/win32/release/SqueakVM-Win32-3.10.5-bin.zip Enjoy, - Andreas

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Morphic 3.0: The future of the Gui
by Juan Vuletich 30 Aug '07

30 Aug '07

Hi Folks, I started to write a "paper to be" about my Morphic 3.0 project. The objective is to convince you that Morphic 3.0 is the coolest thing around :). The first draft is available at www.jvuletich.org. I hope you enjoy it. Any comment is welcome. Cheers, Juan Vuletich www.jvuletich.org

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Re: Pipe syntax and the current methods
by Rob Withers 30 Aug '07

30 Aug '07

----- Original Message ---- From: Igor Stasenko <siguctua(a)gmail.com> To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org> Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 11:15:14 AM Subject: Re: Pipe syntax and the current methods > On 30/08/2007, Yoshiki Ohshima <yoshiki(a)squeakland.org> wrote: > > Hello, > > > > > Since Pipes makes Smalltalk better at prototyping, Pipes gives me a sharper pencil. > > > > I think I know a part of your frustration. When you are trying make > > the idea rendered into the first cut of code, you really don't want to > > move the cursor back in the characters you typed and insert some other > > stuff just to make it compile and do something. > > > > Another approach to solve this problem is to make the editor > > smarter. I could imagine to have a some command-key sequence that > > puts open and close parenthesis around the *last* expression. The > > definition of the "last" expression may need a clarification but it > > almost sounds like "right before the last statement separater ($.)" > > would be good. With it, if you type: > > > > aCollection select: [:each | each isSomething] > > > > and then realize that you actually want to continue to write collect:, > > then you press a key combination and it enclose the above expression > > with $( and $). In this way, you don't have to change the language. > > > > For this kind of stuff, having three different precedence in message > > sending is basically two too many. That is why the lisp-mode in Emacs > > shines more than any other modes. But for Smalltalk-80 syntax, it > > wouldn't be too bad. > > > > And then the only thing you need is to implant a chip into your brain > to be able read code with many (...) fast :) You already have one of those chips. They call that your nose and it is for smelling nasty, nasty code smells. It doesn't matter if you are using () or |, they both smell when used excessively. Refactor! Do something crazy like defining a StackFilter, where you can push expressions into a stack and apply it to an underlying collection. It would compute the filtered value whenever the underlying collection changes. Something like this would be a more OO approach, I would think. Think like an object and not a function. :) cheers, Rob

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Re: Morphic 3.0: The future of the Gui
by bradallenfuller＠yahoo.com 30 Aug '07

30 Aug '07

>> Another thought: I always wanted to be able to have _any_ object that communicates to the >> user to be a morph. This would be any graphic object, but also any video object, audio object, >> anything that deals with the senses of the user. What do you think about this idea? > >This is already so. see #asMorph message :) >You can build up any morph(s) for representing your object. I'm not referring to building a graphic object to represent a sound (for instance), I want to manipulate a sound or video just like I can a morph graphic object.

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