TextLint

You may know the lint tools for Smalltalk or Java helping you to common errors in code.

There is now also a nice app called "TextLint" which is written in Pharo Smalltalk. It is a lint tool for common style errors in natural language. You can use it to process your text/latex/... files.

Here are videos (1 and 2)showing the tool in action.

Seafox.xpi - HTML to Seaside plugin

Nick released Seafox.xpi - a small plugin for Firefox that translates a websites HTML into the appopropriate seaside methods.
Nice and helpfull! Read more.

Reddit in Smalltalk

Sven Van Caekenberghe provides a new Seaside article on "Reddit.st - In 10 elegant Smalltalk classes"

Pharo 1.1. Setup for Windows

The new Pharo 1.1 release comes (similar to the first version) as a large download: the one-click image with virtual machines for all major platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux).

As before for those who want to use/run Pharo 1.1. on Win32 system only I additionally prepared a smaller installer for the new release. Read more. As ever it is also available on the Pharo project site.

Aida on Pharo 1.1

Not only Seaside 3.0 is running on the new Pharo 1.1. release. Also the Aida Smalltalk
web framework is running nicely on the open source Smalltalk platform. Read more.

Pharo by Example on Amazon

Pharo by Example can now finally be ordered at Amazon.com and therefore also orderable at any bookstore. You can also visit the online version.

Pharo 1.1. released

Pharo 1.1. - the next milestone of the Pharo project is released. Here is a short summary what's new.

Sunset or Eclipse with Oracle JVM

When you run the new Oracle JVM 6u21 and Eclipse you may encounter frequent Eclipse crashes.

Eclipse launcher (which is written in C/C++) reads the JVM vendor and if it detects a Sun JVM, it adds a necessary memory parameter for Eclipse to function.
Since now the "Java" vendor was changed from Sun to Oracle it crashes.

So the current version of Eclipse does not work with the current version of Java on the most popular platform - at least not out of the box.

There is a bug report already ...

Seaside in Czech

Two new Seaside applications on the radar:

http://www.webchod.cz
http://www.kalorik.cz

Cycles in your software

Jannik Laval announced a new tool to see your software package structure and to fix cycles between packages. It is based on Pharo and Moose.

Read more.

Squeak-SSL

Andreas announced a new SSL interface for Squeak.

The project page can be found on squeaksource.

Self programming language

Self 4.4. is released. Read more.

Boot Squeak

Intersting alternative to SqueakNOS: Michael van der Gulik describes
a way to boot Squeak on a tiny core linux.

Seaside 3.0 RC

Julian announced Seaside 3.0 RC.

Yet another Smalltalk success story

There is a very nice web based ERP system built with Pharo and Seaside by Inceptive. Read more.

Squeak is now part of the SCF

Squeak is now a member of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Read more.

Teleplace Cog VMs are now available as OpenSource

Wow ... soon after I asked what the state of the Cog virtual machine is Eliot now announced it as open source release on the squeak list.

The Cog VMs are Squeak/Croquet VMs that run closure Squeak/Croquet/Pharo/Cuis images and should really give them a performance boost. Read more.

Cuis 2.4 released

Cuis is a free Smalltalk-80 environment derived from Squeak. Beeing minimalistic it should be a great tool for running Smalltalk on small devices.

Juan announced version 2.4.

Squeak on iPad

Bert has Squeak with eToys running on the iPad.

Watch the video here or read more on his blog.

Hudson Build Server for Pharo

There is now a Hudson Build Server for Pharo. Welcome to CI.

Smallthought Systems bought by Twitter

The Smallthought Systems company which is known for dabbledb.com (an online data tool written in Smalltalk using Seaside) was acquired by Twitter today.

Interesting, looks like dabbledb.com service continues but does not allow new registrations and Avi (who is also the creator of the original Seaside framework) is now working for Twitter in the Twitter's analytics team. Either he will now switch to Ruby again or we can expect Twitter services driven by Smalltalk in the future. Who knows ...

Read here and here.

OpenCobalt on Squeak 4.1.

Open Cobalt Alpha is the first step in a long term project to make available to all people a free and open source platform for constructing, accessing, and sharing virtual workspaces for research and education. It's all done in Smalltalk.

The OpenCobalt project now moved forward to run on the latest Squeak 4.1. version. Read more.

There is also a new website online for sharing Cobalt worlds: http://cobaltworlds.com.

ESUG 2010

ESUG 2010 is in preparation, this year in Barcelona, Spain (September 13 - 17, 2010) together with a Camp Smalltalk (September 11-12).

Read more if you want to contribute or attend.

JNIPort Preview for Pharo

JNIPort - a bridge between Smalltalk and Java is now also available for Pharo. Joachim released a first preview.

Memory Monitor for Pharo

Alexandre created a small memory monitor for Pharo. Nice.
Instructions to load via Metacello can be found on the project site.

Pharo Engineer

INRIA is looking for a fulltime Pharo engineer. If you want to work with Smalltalk in France then read more.

Seaside at Irish Software Show

Julian speaks about the Seaside web framework on the Irish Software Show (held between June 8th and 11th in Dublin's Trinity College). Read more.

Gaucho 1.0

Fernando announced "Gaucho 1.0" - a direct manipulation environment for software based on Pharo 1.0.

If you want to try it out go to http://gaucho.inf.usi.ch to get the install script or watch a video.

Features included in version 1.0:
Direct manipulation of Classes, methods and packages
Easily perform rename refactorings of classes and methods
Draggable arrows for manipulating the inheritance relationships between classes
Creating and runing tests for all the classes in the system
Creating workspaces for taking snapshots of the current pampas
Smart searching for any object in the system
Keyboard shortcuts associated to the most important operations
Logging all the changes to the system
Saving/Loading developers and workspaces to the default local directory

Moose 4.0

There is a new version 4.0 of the Moose suite. It's its first fully open source release since it is now based on Pharo 1.0. Read more.

CKEditor for Seaside 3.0

John Pierce has wrapped the CKEditor for Seaside 3.0. The editor is a web based WYSIWYG editor that you can now use in your seaside application.

The project ist here.

40 YEARS OF FUN WITH COMPUTERS

Dan Ingalls will give a talk on "40 YEARS OF FUN WITH COMPUTERS"
upcoming Thursday at HPI in Germany. Read more.

Points of view - a tribute to Alan Kay

Nice collection of essays written to celebrate Alan Kay's 70th birthday.
Ken found it at Ians site:

http://piumarta.com/pov/points-of-view.pdf

There is also a page at VPRI about it.

Camp Smalltalk London

UK Smalltalk User Group would like to invite everyone to attend
Camp Smalltalk London this July 16-18. Read more.

Pharo by Example: New draft chapter on Monticello

There is a new draft chapter for the "Pharo by Example" book
available. Read more.

To get the PDF check out the news section on http://pharobyexample.org

Seaside 3.0 on Pharo 1.1.alpha

Hey, with the latest updates Seaside 3.0 runs fine on the Pharo 1.1 alpha.

seaBreeze 4.5

Magnus Schwarz just announced a new seaBreeze version 4.5 (based on Seaside 3.0)

You can get it from http://seabreeze.heeg.de.

Chinese on the Seaside

Bernat Romagosa implemented a Chinese Learning Tutor using Seaside. Nice.

Pharo Sprint in Argentina

Alexandre Bergel organizes a new Pharo sprint in Argentina (Buenos Aires or Rosario).

Read here and here about the details.

The World of Smalltalk

Geert Claes announced a new website:

http://www.world.st

Nice and clean design with good introduction information. Next time someone asks for Smalltalk I will point him to that site.

Smalltalktelevision

Chris Cunnington wrote:
"To date I've made 74 video tutorials on Squeak. I make one every week."

You can find them here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/gandysmedicineshow

Pharo talk in Vietnam

Serge will talk about Pharo in Vietnam tomorrow. Read more here.

Promote the use of Smalltalk

I've found this conversation between Michael and Ian on the Squeak-dev list


>> If you want to promote the use of Squeak, you need to find people with a
>> Squeak-shaped hole in their lives, help them recognise that the hole exists,
>> convince them that Squeak can fill the hole, and make filling that hole as
>> enjoyable as possible [note to self, never use this uncomfortable metaphor
>> again].
>
>Are you a golfer? :)


Interesting. Should we play more golf to promote Smalltalk? Why not - a golf course is often the place where business decisions are made ... ;)

Squeaking along with Andreas

Hey, Andreas Raab now starts to blog:

http://squeakingalong.wordpress.com

I think we can expect to see postings on Win32 and Android Squeak VM's, Squeak in general and his work at Teleplace.

Polymorphization of DrGeo

Hilaire Fernandes is working on a more elaborated UI for DrGeo.
He is using Polymorph in Pharo, here with the Win2000 look:

Smalltalk meetup in Cologne June

Again there is a Smalltalk meetup in Cologne, planned for June.
Read more.

Magma 1.1 released

The Magma database for Pharo and Squeak has a new release 1.1.

Read more here.

Squeak and Pharo Installer for Windows

There are different ways to get Smalltalk installed on your machine.

Pharo by default provides a one click image (30MB) which is useful if you want to work with different platforms. It's a simple ZIP file.

I additionally prepared a Windows installer which is only 10MB and more aligned with what a Windows user expects. You can try Pharo 1.0 with it here.

Meanwhile Ian has picked up my script for Squeak and it is nice to see one can also easily install Squeak 4.1. with it now too.

Build the squeak vm from scratch on Linux in one command

Laurent has written a script to build the squeak vm from scratch on Linux in one command. Real time saver.

Squeak 4.1 is released

Squeak 4.1 combines the license change occurring in the 4.0 release with
the development work that has been going on while the relicensing
process took place. Squeak now also includes the closure work and an improved UI.

Read more here.

Iliad 0.8 released

According to Nicolas the version 0.8 of the Iliad web framework is released. Read more.

Apple removes Scratch from iPhone

The discussion on the license change for Apple continues.
Meanwhile Scratch (which is written in Squeak Smalltalk)
was also removed.

Apple tries to keep complete control - I'm sure this wont work. Especially since there are alternatives like Android which offers more freedom.

Pharo 1.0 released

We finally made it ... Pharo 1.0 is released.

Just go and download it.

Future of Java

Oracle bought Sun, now they provide Sun server hardware and also "own" Java (and other technologies like MySQL, JavaFX, ...). I know that there is a JCP, but I think the driving force behind Java development is now Oracle.

Interesting that James Gosling (inventor of Java) now left Oracle.

Interesting times ...

Smalltalk 2009 conference videos

According to Andrés the videos from the Smalltalks 2009 conference are now available at the FAST website. Just click on Videos tab there.

Regex Chapter for PBE 2

There is a new draft chapter on Regular Expressions in Pharo available online.
This is intended for the planned "Pharo by Example 2" book.

Music by projection

Stéphane Rollandin created a screencasts demonstrating the muO system for
experimental musical composition which is based on Squeak 3.8. Read more here. A little bit weird ... since the screencast has no sound enabled, so you have to try it yourself.

Squeak as a DLL

Interesting: Ang BeePeng has Squeak running as a DLL. While that's possible in a few other Smalltalks (ST/MT, Smallscript, ...) it is new for Squeak. Let's see how it will be used.

International Workshop on Smalltalk Technologies

If you have a paper, just send it in. Read more.

PrototypeWindow for Seaside

Hernan provided a seaside wrapper for the prototype window for Seaside:

see http://www.squeaksource.com/PrototypeWindow.html

for Details.

Smalltalk has some great opportunities

Interesting article ...

Smalltalk has some great opportunities

Interesting article ...

New french Smalltalk mailing-list

see http://lists.gforge.inria.fr/pipermail/pharo-project/2010-March/024069.html

Google Summer of code with Smalltalk

If you are a student and want to apply for the Google Summer Of Code with Smalltalk you should now visit the ESUG GSoC page.

Smalltalk User Group Switzerland

Looks like there is a new page for SMUG-S: the SMALLTALK USER GROUP SWITZERLAND

http://smug-s.ning.com/

Gofer Project Loader 1.0 (BETA)

Esteban announced the Gofer Project Loader 1.0 (BETA) - a simple
API to use Metacello loading.

There is a webpage explaining it.

Squeak 4.0

The Eagle Has Landed: Squeak 4.0 is Released

http://ftp.squeak.org/4.0/

The focus for 4.0 was to relicense Squeak with the MIT license (with
some Apple parts remaining under the Apache license.)

Smalltalk meetup in London 03/2010

Read more here

Smalltalk meetup in Cologne 03/2010

Get the details here: http://colstme.selfish.org/events/stammtisch02

New Pharocasts

New Pharocasts are available:

• How to build the VM on Linux
  
• How to contribute to Pharo
  

Trax for Squeak

Stephen Pair released Trax, a general object versioning system for Squeak.

Read more here.

Building a Pharo/Squeak VM on OSX

Hey ... and Adrian is using my metacello config for VMMaker too. He just described on how to build the virtual machine on OSX. Nice.

Building Squeak VM on Linux

Laurent wrote on how to build the Squeak VM on Linux. Nice that the VMMaker metacello configuration I created (see here and here) is used.

Google Summer of Code with Smalltalk

There is a new page for the Google summer of code with Smalltalk:

http://gsoc2010.esug.org/

You can read more about it here.

Next Pharo Sprint: March 13, 2010

The next pharo sprint:

Date: March 13, 2010
Time: 9:30 - 21:30
Place: Software Composition Group, University of Berne, Switzerland

See here for more details.

Chapter on Exceptions for Pharo by Example book

The http://pharobyexample.org book now includes a new chapter on Exception handling in Smalltalk.

The Moose Book

If you want to do software and data analysis then you should read the
new online book from Tudor Girba:

http://www.themoosebook.org/book

about the Moose technology. Moose is an analysis platform written in Smalltalk.

The (yet unfinished) book already includes descriptions on how to use Moose, how to build a browser with Glamour or how to load the latest Moose version into Pharo using Metacello.

One interesting aspect (beside a good documentation on Moose) is that this is now the second dynamic web book on Smalltalk technologies (after the Seaside online book) which is written using the Smalltalk based Pier Content Management System.

Squeak is twittering

The commits to Squeak trunk (the new community development model) are now also visible in Twitter:

http://twitter.com/SqueakTrunk

Should be easy to follow development now.

If you want to know about other package commits (SqueakSource) then
you could use the already known Planet Squeak code:

http://planetmisc.squeak.org

ScratchViewer for iPhone/iPad

John is building a scratch viewer for the iPhone and iPad.

Cologne Smalltalk Meetup Website

There is now a new website available for the Cologne Smalltalk Meetup.

Physical Etoys

Physical Etoys is a visual programming tool that connects the virtual world of computers with the real world in which we live in. Now a first beta version is released.

It is based on the Squeak Smalltalk system. The announcement is here.

Printed version of "Dynamic Web Development with Seaside"

Lukas announced the printed version of "Dynamic Web Development with Seaside".

Re-licensing Squeak

After years it is very close:

"The Squeak Oversight Board plans to finalize the multi-year effort of re-licensing Squeak. Squeak 4.0 is scheduled to be released on Monday, March 15th, 2010 and will be licensed under the MIT License [1] with some original parts remaining under the Apache License [2]."

Read more here ...

Seaside book

Lukas has a first copy of the Seaside book which is printed from the online version.

Hobbes for Pharo

Pavel announced "Hobbes for Pharo". Hobbes (Highly Objectified Blue Book Equivalent Smalltalk) is a virtual machine for the original Smalltalk-80 Version 2 by Xerox.

The Squeak/Pharo port is available now at SqueakSource:

http://www.squeaksource.com/Hobbes.html

Hobbes was first ported to Squeak by Dan Ingalls, later ported to VisualWorks by Vassili Bykov. There is an old version for Squeak available here.

You can see the VisualWorks version in action on a Simberon page.

Iliad webframework

The Iliad web framework for Smalltalk now has a new website online:

http://www.iliadproject.org

Monticello, Metacello ... Metaceller

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

Smalltalk meetup in Cologne

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

seasidehosting.st now with Pharo support

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!

Seaside - PDF Book

Lukas announced a PDF version of the online Seaside book.

Pharo 1.0 Release Candidate 2 and image building

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:

German Smalltalk evening in Munich

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 IDE - Smalltalk in Eclipse

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.

Smalltalk the good parts

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! ;)

Porting from Java to Smalltalk/Seaside

Interesting

Maybe the Smalltalk community should provide tools to ease porting ;)

Squeak on Android

Andreas started to port Squeak to Android. Cool!

Seaside projects

There is some discussion about real world projects with Seaside. Beside well known sites like dabbledb.com or cmsbox.com there is also one available on a dutch insurance company. It's the embedded component on the right. If you look at the source code of the frame you will see that it is done in Seaside using VAST.

Pharo user mailinglist

Beside the "high traffic" regular developers list there is now also a pharo user mailinglist intended for questions of people using Pharo.

Pharocast - Write a blog with seaside

Write a simple blog application in Smalltalk - see the new Pharocast episode.

Pharo/Squeak and XML

If you want to work with XML in Pharo or Squeak you should have a
look at these two projects:

- XMLSupport
- Pastell

An example:


|stream doc|
stream := '<foo bar="1"/>' readStream.
doc := XMLDOMParser parseDocumentFrom: stream.
doc root @ #bar


returns 1

So XPath is built in Smalltalk ;)

Pharocasts

There is now a new weblog called "Pharocasts" with screencasts on Pharo development:

http://pharocasts.blogspot.com

First screencasts are on UI building, the blog was created by Laurent Laffont - if you have recorded screencasts you can send them to him.