Hi Laura,

On Thu, May 26, 2016 at 7:00 AM, Laura Perez Cerrato <lauraperezcerrato@gmail.com> wrote:
 
Elliot, Dave,

Thanks for your feedback! I didn't realise the differences between the
coding practices of JPEGReadWriter2Plugin and other plugins since I
didn't look at the code of the others. I'll try to get the code of
JPEGReadWriter2Plugin to bear more resemblance to the rest of the
codebase. I've taken a brief look at RePlugin's code and the way the C
code should be placed into external files is still a bit confusing to
me. Any guidance in this aspect would be greatly appreciated.

So the scheme is
a) the generated C source for the Smalltalk plugin class is generated in src/plugins/PluginName/PluginName.c, and it includes a PluginName.h
b) the PluginName.h lives in platforms/Cross/plugins/PluginName/PluginName.h.  It should define the functions and types exported by any C sport for the PluginName.c file to use.
c) if the C support code is cross-platform it should live in platforms/Cross/plugins/PluginName/sqPluginName.c, which also includes PluginName.c.  That's the case here, so refactor the bodies of all plugin methods so that the C code tat is in cCode: '...here...' strings gets moved to functions in platforms/Cross/plugins/PluginName/sqPluginName.c.  These functions can be called anything you like but there's a convention to prepend "sq" or "io".  For example in the FilePlugin names like sqFileFlush.  "io" tends to be for more GUI and OS related functionality.
d) if the C code is not cross p;at form, or part of it is not cross platform, that code goes in platforms/platformName/plugins/PluginName/sqPlatPluginName.c, e.g. platforms/win32/plugins/UUIDPlugin/sqWin32UUID.c
 

As I mentioned earlier, I've been working on handling non-even width
16-bit Forms and non-0 modulo 4 width 8 bit Forms. Here are two
changesets with the implementation of that feature.

Thanks!!
 

Cheers!
-Laura Perez Cerrato


On 19 May 2016 at 23:05, David T. Lewis <lewis@mail.msen.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Laura,
>
> Thanks very much for posting this. I took a quick look at it and will
> try to follow up later.
>
> To clarify one point: Eliot is using the word "horrible" to refer to
> some coding practices in the existing JPEGReadWriter2Plugin, and it does
> not mean that your patches are "horrible".
>
>
> Eliot,
>
> Indeed, those giant blocks of #cCode are bad, and somebody (tm) should
> do something about it. It may not be obvious from looking at the change
> set, but Laura's updates are are patches against that existing code.
> So your suggestion is good - either rewrite those portions in proper
> Smalltalk slang, or just move them out to C code in the platforms support.
>
> I think that this is probably beyond the scope of what Laura is trying to
> do here, although I would encourage anyone with an interest in improving
> the plugins to take a look at reworking the #cCode portions of
> JPEGReadWriter2Plugin.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 04:29:15PM -0700, Eliot Miranda wrote:
>>
>> Hi Laura,
>>
>>     this isn't your fault, but looking at the body of the plugin methods,
>> the code is horrible.  It's essentially 100% C.  The code should really be
>> written in C files, not in Smalltalk methods, following the pattern of
>> separating plugin code into a Smalltalk plugin larger calling platform
>> functions written in a C layer.  For example, look at the REPlugin which
>> does regular expressions.  The source to the machinery is in
>> platforms/Cross/plugins/RePlugin.  The plugin methods, e.g.
>> REPlugin>>primPCREExecfromto, do marshalling of Smalltalk objects into C
>> parameters and then invoke function implemented in
>> platforms/Cross/plugins/RePlugin, e.g. pcre_exec.  This approach means that
>> there's onlyas much cCode:inSmalltalk: as necessary.  This is far nicer
>> code to read and fix.
>>
>> Do you have energy to rewrite the JPEG plain code to follow this pattern?
>> If so, let me encourage you.  It will improve the code hugely.
>>
>> On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 7:06 AM, Laura Perez Cerrato <
>> lauraperezcerrato@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > Elliot, Dave,
>> >
>> > Thanks for your answers! Here go both the changesets requested. The
>> > JPEGReadWriter2Plugin changeset was generated using a Squeak Spur
>> > trunk image, whilst the Graphics changeset was generated using the
>> > latest stable version of Squeak non-Spur (4.6-15102). However, It
>> > should also work well with a Squeak Spur trunk image, though I haven't
>> > tested it's functioning there thoroughly. I haven't yet implemented a
>> > graceful way for the new primitive to fail if the new version of the
>> > plugin is absent, so keep that in mind.
>> >
>> > I'm currently working on handling non-even width 16-bit Forms and
>> > non-0 modulo 4 width 8 bit Forms, so I'll hopefully send that to you
>> > too within this week.
>> >
>> > -Laura Perez Cerrato
>> >
>> >
>> > On 18 May 2016 at 22:00, David T. Lewis <lewis@mail.msen.com> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 03:56:11PM -0700, Eliot Miranda wrote:
>> > >>
>> > >> Hi Laura,
>> > >>
>> > >> > On May 18, 2016, at 1:04 PM, Laura Perez Cerrato <
>> > lauraperezcerrato@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > >> >
>> > >> >
>> > >> > Hello, everyone,
>> > >> >
>> > >> > During the past few days I've been working on adding support for
>> > >> > reading and writing reading and writing JPEGs to/from -32, -16, -8
>> > >> > grayscale and 8 grayscale bit deep forms to JPEGReadWriter2Plugin for
>> > >> > the Squeak Cog V3 VM. Just chiming in to tell you that the work is
>> > >> > done and I'd like to share it with you all. :) I believe this changes
>> > >> > should work on Spur VMs too, but haven't tested thoroughly enough to
>> > >> > ensure that.
>> > >> >
>> > >> > How do you handle contributions to the codebase? I assume I'd have to
>> > >> > upload the corresponding changeset to the repository but I'm not sure
>> > >> > if there's anything I should do before.
>> > >> >
>> > >> > I have also been working on a few changes to the latest non-Spur
>> > >> > version of Squeak in order to take advantage of the changes to the
>> > >> > plugin but, since I added a primitive to it and these changes use it,
>> > >> > I think it's prudent to ask you too how those contributions are
>> > >> > handled. Should I refer to the Squeak-dev mailing list?
>> > >>
>> > >> This is indeed a problem.  Talking for myself, until VMs have been
>> > built that include the code and are generally available one can't really
>> > deploy the behaviour to trunk.  But again waiting for the next release
>> > feels far too slow.
>> > >>
>> > >> One approach is to make the behaviour optional, depending on what the
>> > VM provides, eg checking for primitive failure or a plugin version number,
>> > or simply making the code fail gracefully.
>> > >>
>> > >> Another approach is to provide the functionality in an extension
>> > package, and merging that extension into trunk at the next release.
>> > >>
>> > >> Other suggestions folks?
>> > >>
>> > >
>> > > We should take a look at the image side code too. Laura, perhaps you can
>> > > post a change set for that also?
>> > >
>> > > Very often a new optional primitive can be handled simply by providing
>> > > some suitable fallback code. That provides a smooth transition, because
>> > > the new feature is immediately available and the system continues to work
>> > > for people who do not yet have the new primitive in their VM.
>> > >
>> > > Dave
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> --
>> _,,,^..^,,,_
>> best, Eliot
>




--
_,,,^..^,,,_
best, Eliot