September Smalltalk in Munich

Today we have our next Smalltalk meeting here in munich. We start 7pm in the VSA building, Englschalkinger Straße 150 (subway station Arabellapark).

VSA is building health care systems using VisualAge Smalltalk. There will also be a presentation from Joachim Tuchel on VisualAge. I met him coincidentally this morning at the central railway station.

The event is open so feel free to come by if you are interested in Smalltalk. Thanks to Steffen Müller for all the coordination work.

Boot Smalltalk

There is some more info on the web on Squeak Smalltalk booting on the OLPC with the SqueakNOS (No operating system) project:

• Gerardo provided a VMWare image to boot squeak and has some tips how to prepare any Squeak smalltalk image to work without an operating system (you can download the VMWare applicance from here)
  
• James made a video from ESUG 2008 available:
  

CodeCity

I reported earlier on a port of Mondrian to Squeak Smalltalk allowing you to visualize and analyze your object oriented system.
Maybe you also know the CodeCrawler tool from VisualWorks.

Meanwhile there is a new tool available called "CodeCity" presented at ESUG 2008. It visualizes the code in 3D which is very cool. It's written in Cincom Smalltalk. A paper is available here and the projects page here.

James' blog also has some infos and a nice video. Thanks for making this available!

Google Chrome, JavaScript and Smalltalk

The secret is out since yesterday: Google has released Google Chrome - a new webbrowser. It's easy to install - and from a first impression also very fast. But that's not the exciting news - at least not for us Smalltalkers.

The most interesting part is a new implementation for the JavaScript Engine called "V8" done by members of the orginal Animorphic team. Animorphic Smalltalk was a Smalltalk system built around the mid-90s as part of a startup that was informally known as Animorphic Systems. In early 1997, Animorphic was acquired by Sun, and much of the underlying VM technology was put to real use in the Java Hotspot VM.

Animorphic Smalltalk included a high performance VM, a blue-book compatible library, novel browsers and flyweight glyph-based GUI framework, optional type system, mirror based reflection and mixins. It was later released into Open Source.

Lars Bak is now responsible for V8 at Google (he was technical lead for Strongtalk Smalltalk VM and the Java HotSpot VM. I already posted about his early work on OOVM and expected something like this - especially after I havent heard anything from him since 2004 after Esmertec acquired OOVM.

Another interesting aspect of the V8 virtual machine is that it's open source. Just use

svn checkout http://v8.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ v8-read-only"

to checkout the project (13,6 MB). It is mainly written in C++, based on the Strongtalk Smalltalk code and released with a BSD/MIT license. It uses some neat design tricks like dynamically created hidden classes (as you can read on the Design doc page)

Dave Griswold has posted some more information on the Strongtalk list and on the Squeak list.

While Daren is trying to run first benchmarks I gave Dan's lively kernel a try. Lively Kernel is desktop kernel written in JavaScript by Dan Ingalls (of Smalltalk fame) while working at Sun. Right jump into the kernel page with the chrome browser. It's really fast compared to JavaScript engines I tried before.

So JavaScript is hotting up and more interesting work is in the pipe. Maybe you remember Ian's work on open extensible object systems at Viewpoint research institute. With just 400 lines of code and no serious attempt on optimization he was able to implement a JavaScript version that was faster than WebKit/Safari and Firefox...

Regarding performance and running Smalltalk David Griswold explains:
"I'm sure that these sorts of things can be worked around, but they do mean
that V8 will never in its pure form quite reach the pinnacle of theoretical
performance possible for a VM targeted specifically to Smalltalk etc. So it
won't be as fast as Strongtalk, although it may get fairly close to
VisualWorks performance."

"Remember it will still be a lot easier to run other dynamic languages on JavaScript than it is to run them on Java, since at least JavaScript is fully dynamic, unlike
Java."

"The release of the V8 VM is the beginning of a whole new era for
dynamic languages (Smalltalk, Ruby, Python, etc).

Let the flood of fast new dynamic language implementations begin!"

I'm eager what the answer of Microsoft will be (especially since my friend David Simmons (Smallscript/S#) is working on scripting languages there) and if .NET and Suns JVM will be more friendly to dynamic languages in the future. Interesting times ...

SeaBreeze for Seaside

SeaBreeze is a helper tool to setup and maintain applications for Seaside.

Congratulations to the team at Georg Heeg eK for the second price in ESUG innovation award.

At seabreeze.heeg.de Roland Wagner explains it all. I once worked with him in Frankfurt - nice to see what he is working on these days. Click the images to enlarge:



Magnus Schwarz also announced the tool on the seaside list. The source code will soon be available with MIT license.

Glassfish Server adapter

Back in January I reported a bug/missing feature the Glassfish server adapter for Eclipse. The asadmin tool allows you to easily create domains for the server. In a typical setup I separate the domain dir (configuration) from the glassfish installation directory.

While the plugin allows you to set the used domain it is not possible to select the directory where the domain is installed. It expects the domain in the usual subdirectory of the Glassfish/SJSAS installation.

Looks like work Rochelle Raccah from Sun now started working on it today.

SqueakNOS boots on OLPC

More news from ESUG 2008: The Squeak NOS project now boots on the OLPC computer. Read more here (french). A video of the boot process is available here and some comments/code here.

Coq - virtual machine project at ESUG 2008

Coq a television advertisement for the Honda Accord inspired Eliot Miranda for the name and logo for his "faster open source VM's" project.

See Video1 and Video2.

First ESUG 08 impressions (on the web)

ESUG has started - unfortunately I had no time for the short trip to the Netherlands.
But there is also enough information on the web to stay informed like the Weekly Squeak report on the CampSmalltalk and the first unsorted slides from the presentations.

Seaside 2.8.3

Hey, there is a new maintenance release (2.8.3) for Seaside!

SqueakNOS new changes

The Squeak NOS project has some new changes from Gerardo Richarte. Before that the project was last updated in 2006 (after 5 years of official inactivity) - the SqueakNOS mailing list had it's last postings in November 2006.

But it looks like the project is now maintained again. The new version also includes the beginning of USB UHCI specification implementation for USB devices. Let's see how the story continues ...



"An operating system is a collection of things that don't fit into a language. There shouldn't be one." - Daniel H. H. Ingalls; Design Principles Behind Smalltalk; Byte Magazine, August 1981.

Squeak on hand held web computer

Sven Schott installed Squeak on the Pepper Pad 3 (a handheld web computer). As he said:

"It's quite nice having a touchpad with Squeak."

Read more ...

Monticello 2.0 for Squeak

Colin has announced a first release of Monticello 2.0, the versioning tool for Squeak Smalltalk:

Read his first posting for version 2.0.17. Meanwhile it's upgraded to
version 2.0.20

Club Smalltalk

A new website around Smalltalk:

http://www.clubsmalltalk.org

GNU Smalltalk 3.0c

GNU Smalltalk 3.0c is available. Read more at:

http://smalltalk.gnu.org/news/gnu-smalltalk-3-0c

Modulo differences

Should take more care when using modulo and negative numbers.
Did'nt expect a difference at first:

Excel	=MOD(-1; 12) -> 11
Smalltalk (Squeak)	-1 \\ 12 -> 11

---

Java	-1 % 12 -> -1
VisualBasic	-1 Mod 12 -> -1
(PL)SQL	select mod(-1, 12) from dual -> -1
JavaScript	alert(-1%12); -> -1

Get Insight

Try http://google.com/insights/search/# with various search terms like

Smalltalk, Java, Squeak, Oracle, Eclipse, Ruby on Rails, C#, EBay, ...

Interesting ...

Style with Smalltalk

We already had "Smalltalk with Style" (maybe you know the book).

But we now also have "Style with Smalltalk" - a project called "Phantasia" as an add on for Seaside. If you want you can also use Smalltalk (instead of CSS) to style your web pages. Read more here.

Potato VM blog

There is a new blog accompanying the Potato project (i.e., the JSqueak offspring):

http://potatovm.blogspot.com

Exupery 0.14

Bryce Kampjes has released Exupery 0.14. . Read more on the newest stuff in the native code compiler for Squeak.

It's available on SqueakMap and on SqueakSource.

Closures

Some news from Elliot about his work on a new Closure scheme for Squeak/Croquet.

He also made the first bootstrap code available at: http://www.mirandabanda.org/files/Cog/Closures0808/Bootstrap/

Squeak in education

Found a new project called iStoa.net developed for education in Squeak Smalltalk.
It is a learning environment with emphasis on interactive activities through
artifacts, recording of student activities for further analysis, curriculum
modeling with oriented graphs and learner modeling.

Looks like the client application is also running on the OLPC XO notebook.



Code is available at:

1. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaCore.html


2. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaExo.html


3. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaWeb.html


4. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaArtifact.html


5. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaEtayage.html

Squeak in education

Found a new project called iStoa.net developed for education in Squeak Smalltalk.
It is a learning environment with emphasis on interactive activities through
artifacts, recording of student activities for further analysis, curriculum
modeling with oriented graphs and learner modeling.

Looks like the client application is also running on the OLPC XO notebook.



Code is available at:

1. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaCore.html


2. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaExo.html


3. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaWeb.html


4. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaArtifact.html


5. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaEtayage.html

Squeak in education

Found a new project called iStoa.net developed for education in Squeak Smalltalk.
It is a learning environment with emphasis on interactive activities through
artifacts, recording of student activities for further analysis, curriculum
modeling with oriented graphs and learner modeling.

Looks like the client application is also running on the OLPC XO notebook.



Code is available at:

1. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaCore.html


2. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaExo.html


3. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaWeb.html


4. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaArtifact.html


5. http://www.squeaksource.com/iStoaEtayage.html

Squeak and Namespaces

The Squeak community had many discussions in the past on Namespaces within the standard image. Especially after other Smalltalks like VisualWorks provide Namespace by default.
The easy way is to have conventions so the names just don't overlap.

There have been proposals like the one from Göran (and working implementations) for namespace support.

One idea is to reify the prefixes so you could write My::Class instead of MyClass.
Smalltalk/MT uses the same notation. However, no proposal for Squeak has been adopted yet.

Michael van der Gulik has now released a premade Namespaced image. This is part of his SecureSqueak project.

There is also a video available.

WxSqueak 0.5.1 demo

A new 0.5.1 demo version of WxSqueak is available. Read the announcement or check out the updated project page:

http://wxsqueak.org/

Domino simulation

Willi Griephan of Bremen shows the operation of two Croquet simulation spaces that he created using the Croquet SDK.



Read more here (german) or the summary from Julian Lombardi.

Reminds me on the Smallscript3D library from Ernest Micklei (Philemonworks.com) who did a World Record of 4.7 million 'Virtual' Dominos using (VisualAge) Smalltalk. Ernest's page has changed, but the wayback machine shows some details.

Potato aka JSqueak

Looks like the HPI has created an extended version of JSqueak (Squeak VM implemented in Java to run on JVM) called "Potato".



Read more here.

JavaScript and Smalltalk Diff

Tony Garnock-Jones implemented a Hunt-McIlroy diff and a diff3 implementation in JavaScript and Squeak.

He blogged about it here and here.

The source is available at http://www.squeaksource.com/DiffMerge.html

Squeak demo on iTouch

Looks like Squeak is running on iTouch systems. Found on #DNU.

Show Smalltalk

Looks like we should continue to show the ease of development in Smalltalk IDE's so more people like Piers Cawley will find their way to Smalltalk.

Pharo - a new implementation of Smalltalk based on Squeak

The Pharo project wants to take a fresh look at the Smalltalk philosophy and current implementations. It wants to produce a clean and lean open-source Smalltalk.
It will start from Squeak but pharo is a fork. An important test for pharo is that Seaside should run on it.



Project site: http://pharo.gforge.inria.fr/
Mailing list: http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/pipermail/pharo-project/
Source: http://www.squeaksource.com/Pharo/
Inbox:  http://www.squeaksource.com/PharoInbox/

As far as I know the project is named after the famous lighthouse of Alexandria, but this was called "Pharos" not "Pharo". Time for a bug report?

LifePipe for Seaside2.9

Looks like Lukas is working on wrapping the LifePipe UI library for Seaside 2.9.

The LifePipe UI is a set of MIT licensed widgets and controls. The library is based on the Prototype JavaScript library. Interesting...

JSqueak

Dan released the first official version of JSqueak - a simple Squeak interpreter implemented in Java.

This may also open the door to other platforms like Android (based on the Dalvik VM, but programmable in Java)...

Better VMs - Part 2

As I reported earlier Eliot is now working on better Squeak/Croquet virtual machines. Some more news are now available from his blog and it looks like code will follow soon.

Go Eliot!

Smalltalk Evening in Munich

Unfortunately my time is very limited these days so I was not able to write much about the last Smalltalker meeting here in Munich. It was an interesting evening.
Georgios German presented the Traffic management Software developed at GEVAS which is implemented in VisualWorks. Very interesting application with lots of knowledge built in.

After that I presented an online application which I developed to demo Seaside and show some of the Seaside features. Maybe more on this later on this blog.


Short info on the next Smalltalk "Stammtisch" meeting in Munich on 26.6.2008:

Same place: GEVAS Software (Systementwicklung und Verkehrsinformatik GmbH) Nymphenburger Straße 14/Sandstr. 26.

The meeting starts 7.30pm, please use the side entrance of the building
Sandstr. 26 (5th floor)

Steffen Müller and Marco Leberfing would like to present and talk about "QueryVision" - a Seaside Application developed in Dolphin Smalltalk.

Unfortuntately I'm not able to attend the meeting - but I got a preview of the software so I'm sure it will become an interesting evening again...

Food for thought

More and more Java add on vendors stop their business. Looks like it is not a viable business model anymore to sell tools or software in general. Read the story of Enerjy plugin for Java (a static code analysis tool) for yet another example. Some shops close down, others switch to becoming service providers.

Also the Java community get more and more fragmented. People start looking for alternatives like dynamic systems.

Especially after more and more people lamenting on new language extensions and the growing complexity of Java (even people from Sun). Others already announce that Java as dead.

I think computer science should start to learn from past experiences (instead of reinventing the wheel) and try to decrease complexity using minimalistic concepts.
Have a look at Smalltalk to see how powerfull systems can be just by having dynamic systems based on two simple things: objects and messages.

A very interesting talk in this regard is Ian's presentation from the workshop on self-sustaining Systems (S3). Food for thought ...

Better Squeak VMs

After checking my LinkedIn contacts I noticed that Eliot Miranda
is now Analyst/Programmer at Qwaq Inc. Some of you may know Eliot
from his work on the VisualWorks Smalltalk virtual machine.

It's interesting to see that he is working there since Qwaq Inc.
builds online virtual worlds based on Squeak and Croquet.

Maybe the Squeak Smalltalk system gets future improvements on
the virtual machine side if some of the development is contributed back
from the company to the Squeak community (as it was the case for the Hydra multi-core Squeak VM).

Interesting changes in the year of Smalltalk...

HPDF - Haru Binding for Squeak

I played with HARU last weekend. It's a free, cross platform, open-sourced software library for generating PDF. So why not use it from Smalltalk to generate PDF's:

I created a Squeak binding to it using FFI. Read more here.

The Squeaksource project can be found at http://www.squeaksource.com/HPDF.html

S3 workshop in Potsdam

On SqueakNews you will find a short report on workshop on Self-Sustaining Systems (S3) in Potsdam.

Ian presented COLA, Dan presented Lively and there were also some demos on Huemul Smalltalk, Pico and SPy.

The first videos are available on http://www.tele-task.de

OmniBrowser in SeasideXUL

Pavel continues his work on XUL for Seaside. He now has the OmniBrowser framework running...

Google Chart API for Seaside

Seaside has more and more additional projects like SeaChart. The project now also includes examples for using the GoogleChart API. Click on the image for a few examples:

JavaConnect := Java asSmalltalkValue

Nice project: JavaConnect is a Visualworks Smalltalk library that allows a seamless interaction between Smalltalk and Java. A Smalltalk application can access any Java object and send messages to it, just as if it were a Smalltalk object.

Read more at the JavaConnect project page:



Would be interesting to know how this relates to Joachim Geidels JNIPort project.

Smalltalk Evening in Munich

Today we have our next Smalltalk Evening here in Munich. Its hosted at:

Systementwicklung und Verkehrsinformatik GmbH
Nymphenburger Straße 14/Sandstr. 26

Please use the side entry Sandstr. 26 (5th floor), we start at 7.30pm

Two main topics:
- VW-Software at Gevas
- Squeak

Maybe we find the time to talk about Seaside too.

Seaside and SVG

The SVG project for Seaside is moving forward. It now also includes an example for rendering charts and a Mondrian graph. Meanwhile also the Mootools for Seaside got ported from VW to Squeak.

Here is a screenshot (click to enlarge):

Krestianstvo

"Krestianstvo" - a framework to design Tweak UI's for Croquet applications in plain XML and CSS files. It includes one example of using XUL in Croquet. The project is hosted on Squeaksource.

Diff Tools for Squeak

Gary Chambers announced new Diff Tools for Squeak as part of the UI Enhancement packages.

Looks promising:



and with different fonts and different look:

Arrrggghhhh .....

Arrghhh!!! Try this:


Smalltalk

Transcript show: (50.0 - 7.23) asString

returns 42.77


C/C++

#include 

int main(int argc, char ** argv) {
    double a = 50.0 - 7.23;
    printf("%lf", a);
}

returns 42.770000


Java

public class Test {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        double a = 50.0 - 7.23;
        System.out.println(a);
    }
}

returns 42.769999999999996

Seaside and SVG

Want to use Seaside to generate Scalable Vector Graphics? At the beginning of April Gerhard Obermann asked for an SVG package on the seaside mailing list.

SVG

Meanwhile the project started. Interesting to see that there is a good infrastructure for people to collabroate and work on new Smalltalk stuff.

XUL for Seaside

Pavel started a new project: SeasideXUL. It allows you to generate XUL
using using Seaside as the Smalltalk web application framework.



Browse the screenshots and code, download a Squeak demo image or read more here...

Seaside Tutorial as Book

The Seaside tutorial from Potsdam is now also available as a book from Lulu.com.

Seaside for Java

Seaside is now available for Java too:

http://www.seaside.st/community/development/seaside4j

A little bit more complex and larger download but rember to
evaluate "Date today printString" in Smalltalk first ;)

Seaside and eBay tools

Another successful startup using Seaside and Smalltalk: auctomatic.com. Its a tool to ease selling at eBay. They now have been bought by Live Current Media.

Have a look at the interview with Meet Harjeet, one of the co-founders behind Auctomatic. He talks about the ideas and also about Smalltalk and Seaside.

Read more about the deal here and here.

So if you want to become a millionaire with a web startup too start coding in Smalltalk and Seaside...

Cobalt

Some more news from Croquet:

Cobalt is an emerging open source and multi-platform metaverse browser and toolkit application being built using the open source Croquet SDK:

http://www.opencroquet.org/index.php/Cobalt

You can download the Squeak Smalltalk image, browse the code in the Monticello Code repository or visit the Cobalt Google Group.

Hydra VM

Qwaq has realeased the Squeak HydraVM as open source under MIT license.

Hydra VM is a virtual machine capable of running multiple Croquet images side-by-side, therefore being able to effectively utilize multi-core CPUs.

Read the announcement from Andreas.

The official release is here: http://www.qwaq.com/HydraVM

Who owns a language

There is an interesting question in Ted's blog posting:

Who owns a language and therefore influences its direction?
Is it Anders Hejlsberg who owns C#, is it James Gosling who owns Java and Matz for Ruby? Do they really move these languages forward or just try to copy features from language A to language B?

That's like Mrs Merkel deciding about adding new phrases to german language or Mr. Sarkozy deciding about new words in a french dictionary.

The question for Smalltalk is easily anwered: it is YOU. Everything is open and therefore easy to change. You have full control.

I tell you a little secret: Smalltalk is no a language by default, it's just a dynamic object system. Since anything in the world is an object you can easily bring it into this system. That's where its power comes from.

Smalltalk as a language is just mapped to this object system. The language is just composed of objects and methods and like any other part of the system changable and extendable.

Want to have an example: you need a repeat-until control structure (which is not there by default), just add a #repeatUntil: message to the block class. If others find it usefull this may take it's way to one of the standard images (predefined object worlds). But even if it gets not accepted by a broader community you can easily have it and manage it on your own...

You have a common nominator (called Smalltalk ANSI Standard), but if required you can speak your own dialect (Smalltalk with Namespaces, Smalltalk with Traits, ...) - if the dialect gets a wide interest it may survive.

Next question is who influences the ANSI Standard ;)

My kingdom for a Smalltalk block

Ever looked at the source code of the LivelyKernel, especially to Core.js:


applyFunctionToShape: function() { // my kingdom for a Smalltalk block!
var args = $A(arguments);
var func = args.shift();
func.apply(this.shape, args);
if (this.clipPath) {
console.log('clipped to new shape ' + this.shape);
this.clipToShape();
}
this.adjustForNewBounds();
}.wrap(Morph.onLayoutChange('shape')),


Lively Kernel talk at Google

Dan Ingalls did a Lively Kernel demo at tech talk at Google.

Click here to see the video.

Maybe this is the next thing after these "AJAX/DOM/DHTML stuff with multibrowser testing" to get a decent ui running in the web browser ...

Interesting Testrunner

Test driven development using a stoplight (or golight), another feature invented in Smalltalk: Read more. ;)

The Three Questions

Douglas Adams had only 1. Brett's got 3 questions that clarify Smalltalk.

See: http://schuchert.wikispaces.com/3Questions-Smalltalk

Smalltalk evening at the OOP2008

Some pictures from the OOP 2008 Smalltalk evening, click to enlarge:


Suzanne Fortman, Marketing Manager Cincom

The evening begins with 3 parallel tracks


Arden Thomas, Cincom talking about Smalltalk

- many things were invented in Smalltalk
- Smalltalk continues pioneering
- Closures, Reflection, Image Based Development
- "Try doing that while it's running"
- changing the definition of an object while it is running
- Smalltalk is enjoyable and addictive


An OpenGL demo created in Smalltalk. "Change it while it is running!"

- he refactored the running OpenGL graphic animation


Lukas Renggli talking about Seaside

- Problems with page oriented frameworks: logic cluttered on many pages
- Seaside is a web framework
- does the web job, no persistence solution by default like in RoR
- always valid XHTML
- Web components and applicaton logic written in Smalltalk, styling in CSS
- web components with own state/model management
- Backtracking and Continuations
- Seaside is secure by default (encoding, no parameters, ...)


A few web applications using Seaside


Seaside is also able to handle high traffic


Improvements in the new Seaside version

The new Seaside version has improvements in memory footprint and rendering speed. Read the official Seaside website for more.

Dynamic Language Shootout at OOP2008

At OOP 2008 here in Munich there was a dynamic language shootout organized by the german magazine "Java spektrum".

The winner is Thorsten Seitz with a Smalltalk application based on VisualWorks and Seaside. Congratulations, even if it is not a suprise that Smalltalk is by far the best dynamic language! The second winner is JRuby, the third Lua.

You can download and try the solutions here.

The winning Smalltalk application not only was the best solution, it also had a nice web user interface based on Seaside:

Seaside in Munich

Will work in Munich for the rest of the week, so I hope to find the time to visit the Smalltalk evening at the OOP. See you there.

CSS Dock Menu in Seaside

Found some time this evening to wrap the CSS Dock menu demo in Seaside. It's really easy to wrap existing JavaScript/CSS components into Smalltalk classes. Here is a small tip:

• implement a subclass of WAFileLibrary (like MyComponentFileLibrary)
  
• go to http://localhost:port/seaside/config and select "Configure" on the files entry
  
• select "Configure" on your new MyComponentFileLibrary class and upload files
  

As you will notice Seaside automatically converts the images, scripts or other resources into methods on your WAFileLibrary subclass.
You can then access the resource in your code using the "MyComponentFileLibrary / resourceMethod".

If you want to add the script to the html output overwrite the #updateRoot: message in your WAComponent subclass.

You can grab the code for the dock menu demo directly from here or browse the SeasideExamples project. It's actually in Squeak but the two classes could easily be ported to other Seaside platforms like VisualWorks. I also uploaded a demo to integrate the virtual earth control (IE only) into a seaside application.

The SeasideExamples project was initiated by Phillipe and is open for read/write, feel free to upload your examples.

Interview on the Seaside

Avi was interviewed for FLOSS weekly. Listen and download Seaside to change your web application development experience.

Interview on the Seaside

Avi was interviewed for FLOSS weekly. Listen and download Seaside to change your web application development experience.

Cool but stupid things ...

Rick DeNatale talks about cool, but stupid, things he hass done in Smalltalk. His "about-me" also includes some interesting bits of Smalltalk history at IBM.

J2EE webapps ...

J2EE is still painful - even with tools like WTP, new graphical JSP/JSF editors, wizards to create various beans and projects for OR mapping like Dali. Most of the time waiting for the application servers like Geronimo, OC4J or JBoss to restart or looking which Maven goal/configuration could help you building your application.

Glad that I'm not alone with this experience. But there is help. I think Mr. Lorenzen should have a look at Seaside.

No need to restart the webserver if you build web applications in Smalltalk, no overcomplicated XML configurable build tools and the freedom to care about solving the problem - not fixing buggy tools or browsing API descriptions.

Innovative User Interfaces

Would be nice to have something like the BumpTo grouping on my desk.

There is also an interesting use of a TabletPC to play with physics.

Dynamic code generation for images using Rhino and JavaScript

Chris Double describes an interesting way for dynamic code generation based on (Smalltalk like) images.

In his example he implemented an image class in Javascript and two simple assemblers (one for x86, one for ARM). He uses the Rhino JavaScript engine (provided in js.jar) to run the scripts and write the image to disk. He then uses a simple C program to call a (now native) function in the image.

Actually his generation step hard codes the image generation depending on the specific assembler. But it should be easy to create a more general bytecode like assembler for image generation which compiles to the selected architecture.

Really interesting to use JavaScript/Rhino for that...

If you want to play with his files you have to manually download them since the link to the TAR does not work:

js.jar
x86assembler.js
generate.js
image.js
armassembler.js
run.c

Just call Rhino using: java -jar js.jar generate.js to create the image.

Smalltalk in Nepal

The Open Learning Exchange Nepal has released a demo Squeak Smalltalk image. It's fascination who uses Squeak these days, so I'm glad the Smalltalk community continues to grow.

Here are some screenshots, click on the images to enlarge:

Squeak BOF at OOPLSA

There are first tapes from the Squeak BOF at OOPSLA:

Squeak-BOF-OOPSLA-2007-1-3
Squeak-BOF-OOPSLA-2007-2-3

ANSI Smalltalk

There is a call for getting involved into the ANSI Smalltalk process by Bruce Badger.

Looks like there is also a new ANSI Smalltalk mailinglist.

New Seaside tutorial

The Software Architecture Group at the Hasso-Plattner-Institut (University of Potsdam, Germany) announced a new Seaside tutorial:

http://www.swa.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/seaside/tutorial

OLPC in german news

The OLPC project is in the german news.

EduSim3D, Greenbush and Croquet videos

Here is a new a video about a teacher adding a 3D virtual environment to her SMARTBoard.

The software is called Edusim3D and is based on Croquet which is done in Squeak Smalltalk.

Some more videos can be found on the Greenbush website:

• Your interactive whiteboard may never be the same again
  
• Bring in Video, Images, and Text onto your Whiteboard
  
• Using Croquet on a Smartboard - Croquet for kids !
  
• Ultra Mobile Devices & Internet in the "Air"
  
• Greenbush Labs: Exploring Tomorrows Educational Tech Today !
  

Seaside Builder

Hernán Morales points to a preview on the development of an interface builder for Seaside

The ideas of this package are based on WindowBuilder Pro. Right now they have support for most common web controls (TextField, Panel, RadioButton, TextArea, Label, Button, Anchor, CheckBoxGroup, RadioButtonGroup, ListBox, FieldSet).

Here is a screenshot (click on the image to enlarge):



He thinks the package would be available at the end of this year or first months of 2008. He also points to two preview videos:

http://smartware.com.ar/builder.avi
http://cs.hernanmorales.com.ar/SeasideBuilder.avi

Active Book

Tim talkes about the "Active Book", a portable tablet like computer running Smalltalk.

Sun Labs Lively Kernel

Dan Ingalls announced on the squeak-dev mailing list that Sun Labs has published Lively Kernel.

Looks like they have implemented a small computing kernel for the browser in JavaScript and ported Squeaks Morphic on top of it.

Here is a first screenshot impression (click on image to enlarge):



Based on the tradition of Smalltalk and Squeak it also includes the IDE:



Would be interesting what could be possible if this is combined with the Seaside web framework on the server side.

Squeak By Example

A new book on Squeak is available for free:

http://SqueakByExample.org

Squeak on OpenSource Phone

Another platform Squeak is running on: the FIC Neo1973 Open Source Phone

Croquet interactive

Cool stuff: Croquet on an interactive whiteboard

Next generation of Smalltalkers ...

No postings for a while. I have a pretty good reason: welcome on earth little Elisa. ;)