Hi--

	After a hiatus to work on a natural-language interpreter ("Quoth", 
premiered earlier this month at Transmediale in Berlin), I got back to 
the task of making the first Spoon modules.

	The very first one is a sort of "hello world" for graphics. It does this:

***

	Display
		fill: Display boundingBox
		rule: Form over
		fillColor: Color red

***

	Since my target, before loading the module, is headless without any 
graphics support at all (not even BitBLT or DisplayScreen, see 
http://www.netjam.org/spoon/notes/survivors for a list of the surviving 
classes), getting there is a bit of a wild ride. My plan is as follows:

---

1.	implement bi-directional message sending

	Up until now, I'd just been sending remote messages *to* the headless 
system from a headful one (mostly system browsers ripping things out of 
the headless system). Now I want to send messages in both directions, so 
that I can...

2.	make remote debugging work

	I could sorta limp along trapping messages not understood in the C 
debugger, but that has gotten tedious. :)  Also, I'm pretty sure I'll 
want to be able to use a normal Smalltalk debugger to debug processes in 
the headless system from the headful one, to debug the inevitable 
initial glitches with...

3.	imprinting onto the headless target

	So far my imprinting experiments have been between two headful systems 
(so that I could debug comfortably). Once this works with a headless 
system, I can...

4.	imprint the "hello world for graphics" expression onto the headless 
system (creating a module for all the required behavior as a side-effect)

	Then I can...

5.	run the "hello world for graphics" expression in the headless system 
(and transfer its module to other headless systems)

---

	Today I made part one work. I successfully sent a message from a 
headful system to a headless system, which answered the result of a 
message sent from the headless system to the headful system. It's an 
exciting step!


	thanks,

-C

--
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
craig at netjam.org
www.netjam.org
[|] Proceed for Truth!