The Hitchhiker's Guide to ...

Metacello is a nice package management system for Monticello in Pharo.
There are already various configurations for well known packages available in the MetacelloRepository project.

With a pharo image installed Metacello can be used to load a specific (or the latest) versions of Seaside:

  Gofer new
    squeaksource: 'MetacelloRepository';
    package: 'ConfigurationOfSeaside30';
    load.

 (Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfSeaside30) loadLatestVersion

Tudor Girba now created a basic version of a browser called "Metaceller" for managing Metacello configurations that are already loaded in the image. Read more here.

To load in Pharo evaluate:

 Gofer new 
        squeaksource: 'glamoroust'; 
        package: 'ConfigurationOfGlamoroust'; 
        load. 
 (Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfGlamoroust) perform: #loadDefault. 

After loading you can open the tool using:

 GTMetaceller open

There is a Cologne Smalltalk User Meetup on 18th of February.
Read more here.

Adrian announced that the free Seaside hosting service seasidehosting.st now also supports Pharo (as well as any other closure aware Squeak images) since they updated the VM. Cool!

Lukas announced a PDF version of the online Seaside book.

There is a new Pharo 1.0 RC2 (release candidate 2) image available. If you are on Windows you can also download the new setup. But there is much more going on in the Pharo community going on than just a new image.

The interesting stuff is that by using the Metacello packaging system one is able to load packages that are compatible with Pharo. Try the examples in the provided intro workspaces of RC2 and check out Dales blog for more metacello news.


After playing a little bit with it and cleaning up my projects I'am now able to load a Seaside sample application - here MetaSource with dependencies like FFI, Seaside 3.0, JQueryWidgetBox, ... just by providing a metacello configuration and evaluating a simple script:


Gofer new
squeaksource: 'MetaSource';
package: 'ConfigurationOfMetaSource';
load.

((Smalltalk at: #ConfigurationOfMetaSource) project version: '1.0-alpha1') load


There is also a loader in preparation to ease this a little bit more. However - it is really easy now to build custom images like the one with MetaSource - a simple seaside application:

There is a german Smalltalker Meeting ("Smalltalk-Stammtisch") on
27.1.2010 in Munich. Just visit the Laab location in the evening. Entrance is free.

There will be a presentation from Thomas Stalzer on "Distributed Objectmodels". If you want to apply just send a short mail with your name to the organizer (Steffen.mueller AT VisKonz.de)

See also Joachims blog.

GemDev is an experimental implementation of Eclipse-based IDE for GemStone Smalltalk.

See more here.

The IDE provides features like Smalltalk Browser, code editor or object inspector. Interesting.

Douglas Putnam started a blog called http://smalltalkthegoodparts.com to record his Smalltalk explorations. He starts with a proof of concept for running Smalltalk on Slicehost.

"We believe that Smalltalk can give us a technological advantage in the coming Web 3.0. "


Pssst ... use Smalltalk as your secret weapon and dont tell any other! ;)