Amber and script tag

Amber allows you to write client side scripts for the webbrowser in Smalltalk.
Nicolas now added support for the script tag so you can write the code directly in the HTML page:

 

Pharo localization and translation with ICU

A really good package for everything related to Locales, translation and I18N is ICU. There is an interface for Pharo written by Jan van de Sandt (using the NativeBoost callout mechanism).

Pharo VM Update

There is an updated set of Pharo VMs available (built by Jenkins), including Cairo, FFI, FreeType and SSL support.

GSoC 2012 Showcases

The showcases for the Google "Smalltalk" Summer of code are available online.

Morphic BPM

There is a "Morphic Business Process Modeler" running right in your webbrowser. Based on JSMorphic which is a port of Smalltalks Morphic to JavaScript.

Watch the video or try yourself.

Lars Bak on language virtual machines

Lars Bak presents several language virtual machines (Self, Strongtalk, Hotspot), why they matter and how they influenced V8 and Dart.

I find it is a really interesting talk, especially since I follow his VM developments over the years (StrongTalk, OOVM, ... as you know from previous posts). And I agree with Lars who states: "I like Smalltalk"

Try to imagine if the software industry would have continued on the dynamic path in the 90's without getting the detour on static language ideas and VMs. Yes - Java and C# have momentum - but more because of marketing and commercial pressure, market pressure and since people believe in stupid TIOBE index. Better tools and IDEs makes them nowadays less painfull - but that just hides the fact that we need easily changeable and maintainable systems with meta facilities and true reflection that are easily scriptable and extendable.

We know we can do better in the software industry with dynamic languages and dynamic system. Dart is a move forward - but for me still not comparable to the most dynamic object system.
And it still comes with curly braces ;)

Talk about RTalk

James interviews Mark Roos about RTalk (a Smalltalk on top of JVM).

 RTalk is a Smalltalk 'Live' Environment built on the JVM. You can also get the slides from the JVM lang Summit (slides and workshop slides) or watch the video about it at Dr. Dobbs..

Pharo Workshop at fOSSa Open Source conference

There is a Pharo Workshop at fOSSa Open Source conference. Read more.

JSON with Pharo

Want to parse JSON with Smalltalk? You can use Petit parse to do it. Here is a short guide.

Phobos

Pavel announced Phobos - the XULRunner based Smalltalk framework for development of native GUI with standard look&feel for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Read more here and here.