Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Artefact - PDF framework for Pharo

Oliver created a PDF Framework for Pharo called "Artefact". Nice to have a new alternative.

In the past I used my LibHaru wrapper for Pharo - but that one requires a native library. Christians work generating PDF directly in Smalltalk is only available for VW and not yet ported to Pharo.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Squeak on a BeagleBone

Squeak running on BeagleBone (an embedded ARM V7 platform). Read more!

2nd favorite language

Just stumbled over this presentation from Eric Clayberg with an introduction to Dart for Smalltalkers. You can also watch the video here. As you may know Dart is an attempt from Google to provide a better language than JavaScript for structured web apps. Its interesting and in my spare time I follow new Dart development by looking at dartlang.org or Dart news on Google+.

One interesting thing I noticed is that Eric's presentation is dated March 2012. Nothing special for you. But at least something that made me personally think. Exactly 12 years ago in March 2000 we both attended the first CampSmalltalk in San Diego where a bunch of Smalltalkers gathered to make the world a better place and have a great time. It was my first visit to the states and yes - we all had a great time.

At the Camp Eric had a few copies of the original Smalltalk issue of the BYTE magazine and I got the last one he had left. I was so happy about this historical trophy - it still has a special place in my library!
Eric is meanwhile working for Google as Engineering Manager for the new Dart Editor at Google. One of his slides in the Dart presentation is:

"Let us know if Dart is your new 2nd favorite language :)"

I have to admin I'm not sure what my 2nd favorite language is. There are many nice languages out there:
  • Is it JavaScript since it is widely present and IMHO the dynamic languages with the best adoption
  • Is it Dart since its new and better structured than JavaScript?
  • Is it Groovy which is a nice scripting language for the JVM with Java, Lisp and Smalltalk roots and Smalltalk syntax on the wish list.
  • Is it Amber since it allows me to run Smalltalk on JavaScript
  • Is it Java since I (have to) use it in daily work and is the most wide spread
  • Is it SQL since (relational) data often survives code/programs?
  • Is it C since stupid TIOBE ranking says it has now overtaken Java.
When I look back these 12 years many new languages have evolved and I like that now more and more people turn to dynamic languages since they now see the benefits to build dynamic systems. Unfortunately only a few walk in to metaprogramming. So it's not really clear to me what my 2nd favorite language is.

But I know what my first favorite language is and the programming future still has to be invented.

SVG importer for Pharo Athens

Igor is working on an SVG importer for the Pharo Athens framework. He made some progress as this screenshot proves:

Pharo Launcher for Mac

Working with Pharo Smalltalk on Mac? Then have a look here for a nice launcher.

Pharo 2.0 development started

Pharo 1.4 is released - so the community starts Pharo 2.0 development. The webpage has the details.

Cuis 4.0 released

Juan released Cuis 4.0

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Nautilus - the reborn System Browser

When working with the new Pharo 1.4. Release please do not forget to try Nautilus - a new browser. Mariano has written a nice blog post about it.

Collabri - a new Web-App, written in Amber Smalltalk

This is a video on a new Web-App, written in Amber Smalltalk (which is running on top of JavaScript). The server uses node.js and socket.io with Amber.

Video on Athens for Pharo Smalltalk

There is a new video about Athens available - the new vector graphics framework for Pharo.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Pharo.org

The Pharo community now owns http://pharo.org domain.

Amber Smalltalk on PhoneGap

Apache Cordova is a platform for building native mobile applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

The project now has become PhoneGap and if you like you can already use Amber (the Smalltalk on top of JavaScript) with it.

Read more.

Inside OOVM

Kasper V. Lund (who is now working on Google Dart Language) provides a link to his Master thesis which he wrote with Jakob R. Andersen called "Revolutionizing Embedded Software".

Both worked together with Lars Bak in the OOVM team. Lars should be known to you from his V8 JavaScript Engine implementation in Google Chrome, the Strongtalk project and others.

OOVM is a Smalltalk based virtual machine that allows programmers to hook in remotely and modify code on the fly without needing to reboot the environment.

This VM allowed you to connect to running embedded devices and directly manipulate every object, class, or method. Which is a very known concept for us Smalltalkers since the beginning it allowed interactive programming environments for embedded system developers as well.

However - interesting paper.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Pharo: from Kernel to Core

As I already posted Pavel is working on a small Pharo Kernel. The idea is to have the Pharo core image, throw out packages to find a minimalistic kernel image and by loading the packages back prove that it is able to boostrap Core from Kernel again.

Pavel is now using Fuel to load the core packages back into the kernel image to recreate a Pharo Core image. As you can see and read here this really speeds up the process.

Monday, April 02, 2012

Smallsource

Smallsource is a project from Dale to allow you to store Monticello packages
within the file tree. This allows you to use traditional versioning
systems like Subversion or Git from Pharo Smalltalk.

Check out the README of the project.

Dale gave a presentation on this called "Practical Git for Smalltalk"

Vancouver Smalltalk Developer Meetup

And a new Vancouver Smalltalk Developer Meetup group. More infos here.

Ha Noi Smalltalk Developers Meetup

Regular meetings for developers interested in Smalltalk in Ha Noi with focus on Pharo.