Hi Janko,

On Mar 7, 2010, at 1:03 AM, Janko Mivšek wrote:

> Hi guys,
> 
> I'm in favor to invite Newspeak under this year GSoC umbrella,

Great!

> specially
> for projects which will get Newspeak and Smalltalks closer together,

So here is a very simple project. Create a nice tool in Newspeak that facilitates import/export from/to Smalltalk. 
Most of the pieces already exist. The basics are easy, and as much polish can be added as time allows.  

Title: Newspeak/Smalltalk Import/Export Tool

Description:
Create tooling in the Newspeak IDE that facilitates conversion of code from Smalltalk to Newspeak (import) and from Newspeak to Smalltalk (export).

Technical details: The tool will extend and integrate existing components in Newspeak, such as the Newspeak to Strongtalk compiler that essentially does source-to-source conversion to Smalltalk and spits out file out format for Strongtalk. It is easily adapted to other dialects. One can file in Squeak into the the system, and have tools that semi-automatically migrate  it in stages to Newspeak. These tools need to be made more robust, more sophisticated and better integrated. Adaptations to a number of different Smalltalk dialects beyond Squeak are desirable. Integration of tools such as Grease, Sport or Slime is a possibility.

Benefits to Student: Students will gain experience with technologies such as parser combinators, advanced module systems, mirror based reflection and GUI programming in the context of a IDE as well as exposure to a variety of Smalltalk dialects and to Newspeak and its modularity structures.

Benefits to the Community: increased sharing of software. Newspeak gains from the vast amount of available software in the Smalltalk community, and Smalltalk gains from some of the advances made in Newspeak.


Cheers, Gilad