Newbie Squeak questions...

Henrik Gedenryd h.gedenryd at open.ac.uk
Thu Dec 20 11:35:19 UTC 2001


Todd Kueny wrote:

> 1) Are there many other commercially sold (non-smalltalk-programming) apps
> using Squeak as a base?

Not very many. I can't name any but that doesn't mean there are none. A few
efforts went down with the dotcoms in the last year or so.

> 2) It looks like there is no good way to access a database from Squeak
> (probably ODBC).  Is this true?  I am also interested in integrating database
> access into a Wiki.  I thought I saw something about Squeak and MySQL, but I
> couldn't find it.

There is MySQL support somewhere, I've heard talk about PostgreSQL as well.

> 3) I am interested in creating a mechanism (that remains legally open like
> Squeak) to allow integrating GhostScript output into Squeak (.PS/.PDF ->
> Morphic bitmaps).  Does anyone else care?

It could be interesting. Ghostscript as a plugin might be an idea--it is
cross-platform after all. But since this is a high-level app rather than
low-level functionality you will probably be getting results faster by using
FFI to prototype your solution at least. Your main obstacle might be to get
the bitmap into Squeak.

There is help to be found here on the list at that point, however, if you
will need it. It seems the best way to get good answers is to show that you
mean business, i.e. so that people somehow see that you have actually spent
time and effort on your project. This is probably since some people come in
and announce grandiose plans and then they never produce anything, an so
turn out to have been "all talk" rather than "Smalltalk".

> 4) It looks like the Squeak license would require us to turn over all classes
> we created back to squeak.org, which is okay.  We would probably deploy our
> proprietary software components as VM plug-ins.  Are there any other such
> commercial plug-ins?  It looks like this plug-in approach would not violate
> the license???

This is required in principle. In practice, however, it is more considered
"the right thing to do" to contribute and pay back to the community by
releasing things here that can be of general interest, or helpful to others.
Stephen Pair has for instance posted a pretty capable transaction mechanism
rather recently.

> 5) Does Squeak support real-time, network-based message passing between
> running Squeaks?

There have been a number of approaches to this in the past, at different
solution levels. 

> 6) What's the best documentation for Squeak (if any)?

The usual answer used to be there isn't any, but there are currently to
recent Squeak books out, with extremely confusing, generic and
non-informative names. The white one is intro-level, and the blue one goes
deeper into various more sophisticated Squeak-specific technologies.
Although you wouldn't seem to need the first one, you might as well get both
;-)

Henrik





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