Squeak-related employment information sought

Mark A. Schwenk mas at wellthot.com
Fri Jan 21 07:06:45 UTC 2000


Craig Latta wrote:
> 
> Hi all--
> 
>         Interval Research is no longer using Smalltalk in any way, shape, or form (after a few years of using Squeak). I have left. I'd like to continue writing Smalltalk professionally (preferably Squeak). If anyone may offer information toward that end, I'd very much appreciate it. The Squeak list seems like the best place to start.
> 
>         My résumé is at http://netjam.org/resume.
> 
>         thanks,
> 
> -C
> 
> --
> Craig Latta
> composer and computer scientist
> craig.latta at netjam.org
> www.netjam.org
> Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]

Craig,

Although you are currently seeking full-time employment, I may be able to provide some part-time funding to do Free Source Squeak work in areas that support my current project.

I am currently doing some paid Squeaking for a small business client, developing web-enabled business information systems. My current platform of choice for the information server is Linux.

My application uses PWS to serve the dynamically-generated web pages. At the current time, scalability isn't a big issue, as we are only supporting a dozen users or so. In the future, we intend to allow other businesses to interact with the site as well, so the underlying networking stuff may be more important at that point. I had done some preliminary work in porting and evaluating Correspondents on Linux, because I'm not overly thrilled with the current Squeak networking support.

My current concern is in developing an object persistence strategy for information systems in Squeak. I have developed the foundations of an object-relational mapping scheme with an interface to the MySQL database, but I'd like to investigate other areas before putting a lot more effort into that. The app has evolved from providing read-only access to information to now starting to provide the ability to modify information. For the moment, information is just stored in the image, with occasional exports to flat files of the modified information. I had deferred actually using the mapping framework while waiting for some updates from the original author of the code to provide support for using metadata rather than lots of class specific mapping code.

Inspired by Ted Kaehler's LOOM, I have been pondering how the Object Memory portion of Squeak could be enhanced to provide persistence, at least for some classes of objects.

I've also been pondering how the Berkeley Database libraries from www.sleepycat.com could be used with Squeak to provide persistence.

I'm looking at putting something together that is robust and reasonably simple within a couple of months. My current project will be evaluated at that point, and I'd like to have the overall system operating reliably by then. Of course I'd also like to delight the customer and receive continued funding. I've gotten used to working at home over the Internet in my jammies (my NetJammie habit).

Any thoughts or interest in doing some work in this area? What level of compensation would be required for your participation in such development?

Keep on Squeaking!

-Mark Schwenk
 WellThot Inc.





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