Teleplace gone

The company Teleplace is gone, the software (written in Squeak Smalltalk) is still available and continues to live.

Smalltalk-80

Nice video on ST-80.

Renaming Projects: DBXTalk

Looks like it is not good to rename a project while it already got some attention on the web. The former SqueakDBX is now DBXTalk and you should follow this discussion if you are interested.

Smalltalk Christmas greetings

This time as a video. Read more.

Celeste is back

The Celeste E-Mail reader in Squeak is back. Read more.

Smalltalk Devroom at FOSDEM 2012

Dont know what to do on Sunday, February 5, 2012? You can visit the Smalltalk Devroom at FOSDEM 2012 if you like.

Magma 1.3

Version 1.3 of the Magma database system is available. Read more here.

BDD Extensions for Pharo

GUI testing in Pharo made easy - if you are interested then read this and this or checkout the project on Squeaksource. It is an experiment from Sean P. DeNigris for Behavior Driven Development (BDD) in Pharo.

An interesting post

Interesting post if you are interested in dynamic languages. Thanks Michael for sharing.

Squeak Smalltalk from the start videos

Lawson English has some videos to share for Squeak beginners.

Fuel also for Squeak

The Fuel serialization framework is (beside Pharo) now also available for Squeak. Mariano knows more.

Pier Admin

Nick shares an "Pier-admin" extension - an admin UI extension for the Pier CMS (which is based on Seaside).

Yesplan is looking for engineer

Yesplan is looking for a Smalltalk Software Engineer.

Seaside and SqueakSSL on Windows

Want to use Seaside SSL on Windows. Andreas shows you how to do it!

Cool - and thanks a lot (since I was the one asking about the state of this)

SmalltalkHub demo online

The demo for SmalltalkHub is online now. Take care - it is a preview currently.

RTalk - Smalltalk on the JVM

Found the presentation video from the JVM Language Summit about RTalk to run Smalltalk on the JVM.

Seaside Form Validation with Mold

There is a nice framework from Ken Treis for form validation in Seaside. The project is called "Mold" and available on Squeaksource and the Cincom Public Repo. Read this blog post with a detailed description.

New CogVMs

Eliot has a new update.

Smalltalk Hub news

Nicolas talks about SmalltalkHub news

Squeak Beginners Screencasts

HPI provides a new screencast page for Squeak beginners.

JQuery Mobile for Seaside video

Interesting video from Nick on how to build an app with Seaside and the jQuery Mobile wrapper.

Boot Smalltalk

Need a bootable Smalltalk image? Then try this ISO from Pavel.

IronSmalltalk

Todor Todorov has created a new project called "IronSmalltalk" on CodePlex to be able to run Smalltalk on the DLR (Dynamic Language runtime).

Hat tip to James.

Fuel interview

Club Smalltalk interviewed Mariano on Fuel.

Malleable Tools

Martin Fowler talks about Aarhus 2011 conference and the Moose presentation (which is written in Pharo Smalltalk):


Moose is written in Smalltalk, and that same philosophy came through strongly in Tudor's talk - quickly allowing you to build first class features into the tool by implementing new functions in a matter of minutes.

Such malleable tools haven't caught on that much. They do require an eagerness from the user to learn how to make the tool truly sing, but this effort comes with the reward of a tool that can truly be tailored to an individual's needs.

Dart to JavaScript compiler

There is a new (experimental) self-hosting Dart to JavaScript compiler available.

Tools like Wireshark

I like tools - especially usefull ones like Wireshark.

Once Philippe recommended it on the seaside list:

"Use wireshark to inspect at what actually went over the wire"

and yes - it already helped me keep the control!

Browser Building

There is a new video available showing you how easily you can build new browsers using Glamour.

Newspeak update

There is a new Newspeak update available.

JDart - Dart on the JVM

Would you like to run the new Dart language on the JVM - then look at JDart.

Parallel Computing with Smalltalk

David Ungar gives a talk on Parallel Computing. He is doing research with
Smalltalk within the Renaissance project at IBM. They use a modified
Squeak Smalltalk system that runs on the 64-core Tilera chip.

Deep into Smalltalk

All videos of "Deep into Smalltalk" are now available online.

Dart precompiled

Dont want to compile Dart for yourself. There is a precompiled binary here.

CogDroid Updates

Dimitry has some more infos on CogDroid - beside the ARM devices there is now also Android-x86 support available.

CogVM update

Revision #2499 of CogVM is available from Eliot.

Language of Languages

Jamie Douglass, Ralph Johnson and Nick Chen work on an experimental language workbench called Language of Languages (LoLs) that focuses on unifying concepts (meta-models) across different notations.

Read the announcement here or visit the new website http://www.languageoflanguages.org.

Smalltalk India meetup

There are some infos, slides and photos available from the Bangalore Smalltalk meetup.

Gilad on Dart

Gilad talks about Dart.

Hydrodynamics Simulation Environment in Smalltalk

Smalltalk is a nice environment for creating simulations - especially since the results can interactively explored. There is a new project on Squeaksource implementing an Hydrodynamics Simulation Environment. Check out the class side of class HGSimulator for a few examples.

JQuery Mobile for Seaside

Nick provides a new framework for Seaside and JQueryMobile integration.
You can read more here and try it here.

Kaliningrad: Developing with Amber, Seaside and Monticello

If you want to combine the client side Amber with the server side Seaside framework and Monticello then look at the new Kaliningrad project.

CogDroid updates

Dimitry reports again on the status on Cog for Android. Read more.

Dart Language

First infos on Dart appear on the radar: http://www.dartlang.org

You can also try it right in your browser: http://try-dart-lang.appspot.com

Also the language spec.

RoarVM

Interesting overview on the RoarVM.

S8 - Smalltalk on Googles V8 JavaScript engine

Looks like Alejandro F. Reimondo implemented S8 - a Smalltalk platform written on top of Googles V8 JavaScript engine (which is written in C++).

Smalltalk Stammtisch Zürich

There is another Smalltalk Stammtisch Zürich on Tuesday, September 27, 2011. Read more.

Dart/Smalltalk and dynamic object environments

I'm very interested what Dart (the new Google programming language) is all about. Why? Let me explain:

We have seen many new languages in the last few years (from Java, C#, Ruby, Scala, Clojure, Go, ...) - most of them with old and known concepts mixed with different syntax. But nothing really new. I tried nearly all of them but nothing hit me like Smalltalk did back when I understood all of its concepts.

To me Smalltalk is still outstanding since it is not only a language - it's language is only mapped to "the dynamic object system" underneath that the Smalltalk runtime provides. And having such a dynamic object system is the key factor in programming.

Many people are "blind" and dont see this since they compare languages by syntax or features or check if a language is highly ranked in silly comparisions like the TIOBE index. IMHO one of the reasons why Smalltalk is so poorly ranked is that Smalltalk (if seen as a programming language) maps to objects and messages - thats not what people know from other languages and if they look at Smalltalk code this is not what the usual programmer would expect regarding syntax.

Smalltalk is too different here. In a "3 + 4" expression the plus is not an operator - its a message. 3 and 4 are not treated equally - 3 is the receiver and 4 is the argument. Its also different regarding control structures. You dont need a keyword for a "while" loop in Smalltalk - you just need a message. If you dont have a "repeat until" construct you can easily implement it just by adding a message #repeatUntil: to BlockClosure taking a block as argument, ...

But there is this expectation among programmers to learn new keywords and syntax rules with any new programming language. This is how most books teaching programming languages start: learn the keywords, then language control structures and then start coding.
There is also this expectation to use nice wizards to create new classes or writing source code in text files followed by a compiler step.

Smalltalk is different: here you only need six keywords or just send a message to a class to tell the system that you want to create a new subclass of it. So anything is an object and understands messages - even classes and block/closures. Anything is changeable, anytime - even at runtime.

So Smalltalk as "a dynamic object system" is superior - and will continue to be so - since a dynamic environment is easy to change (even the language built on top). If you want you can even cleanly blend in different other more mainstream languages into this dynamic system. You can even make a snapshot of this virtual object system (an image file) and continue with your program or debugging session the next day.

Our world is a dynamic system too - full of objects. Thats why Smalltalk is very close in bringing real world concepts to machines and computing.

But even Smalltalk systems have to be enhanced - there is so much power in the meta facilities of these dynamic environments and Smalltalk still doesn use all of its power here. Meta informations usually are used for IDE tools - but if extended they can allow you to build applications nearly automatically (maybe more on this in another post). This is the field where Smalltalkers have to learn and catch up.

And what about Dart? The people behind Dart know that Smalltalk is not only a language, they worked with the underlying dynamic object system and understand it down to the bare metal. If they have reused and transfer this know how and knowledge correctly into the design of Dart then this new programming language is a chance to again bring dynamic object systems into the focus and raise programmers attention.

So will Dart just be "yet another language" with new books teaching you yet another new syntax or will it be a real step towards more dynamic adoptable and flexible runtime systems?

We will see next week...

Pharo 1.3. available

So Pharo 1.3 is now officially available on the pharo-project.org page.

Running Dolphin app on Mac

As I reported earlier there is some help if you want to run your windows application written in Dolphin Smalltalk also on Mac.

Now there is a new blog post that explains all this in detail.

More Videos on ESUG channel

The ESUG channel on Youtube has new videos available. Read more.

Database conectivity API for Squeak and Pharo

A new database conectivity API and its MySQL implementation was announced by Anindya Haldar for Squeak and Pharo.

ESUG on Youtube

There is now an ESUG Smalltalk channel on Youtube.

Glorp for Pharo

There is an updated port of Glorp for Pharo. Nice!

New site for DBXTalk

DBXTalk (former SqueakDBX) is now online at http://dbxtalk.smallworks.com.ar/

Fast package loading

Mariano is working on fast package loading for Pharo using Fuel.
Impressive: 7 seconds for loading Seaside - he will report soon on his blog.

Amber IRC Channel

The Amber IRC channel is now logged.

More Amber news

Amber already connects with Morphic.js written in JavaScript. See this picture and read more here.

There is also a Twitterwall implemented in Amber.

Really interesting!

Coolacious

Coolacious = Cool + Delicious

With this new screencast released one can get the impression that Andy from ObjectArts released a Mac OSX port of Dolphin Smalltalk into the wild. For those who dont know Dolphin - it is a very nice Smalltalk system - but with history and focus on Win32 platforms. Now natively ported to MaxOSX? Really?

The end of a second screencast here showed that its not a real native port - he uses Wineskin, a tool used to make ports of Windows software to Mac OS X. Wineskin is based on Wine.

Read more here.

I like all these virtual boxes, emulators and stuff. The platform question is nothing one really has to discuss first (in most cases). I can even run my old C64 stuff if I like.

Git Reference

Found a nice intro and reference for Git: http://gitref.org

Seafox for Seaside update with canvas translater

There is an updated version of Seafox for Seaside, now with an HTML to canvas translator. It's helps you building real Seaside apps from existing HTML templates.

You can read more about it here or try it out here:

http://seafox.seasidehosting.st

MethodWrappers ported to Squeak 4.2

Eliot ported Method wrappers to Squeak 4.2. If you know VisualWorks you may already know that Method Wrappers can add hidden behavior to a method without recompiling it. It is a very useful package for implementing coverage and tracing tools.

You can read more about them here.

Klotz

The Klotz project implements an Agile 3D Visualization Engine. It is written in Pharo Smalltalk and is freely available on Squeaksource. There is also a paper for a short introduction.

Pharo 1.3 One click

The Pharo 1.3 one click is now available on the Pharo download page.

Moose video

Want to learn more about Moose then watch this video

Ludus - Game framework on top of Smalltalk on top of JavaScript

Ludus is a new html5 game framework on top of amber:
http://asmalltalkbytheseaside.com

Bangalore Smalltalk Meetup

There is a Smalltalk meetup in Bangalore.

MorphIDE for Amber

When you play with Amber (the Smalltalk on top of JavaScript) you typically need to set up a webdav with Apache. Wouldnt it be better to directly connect this with a server Smalltalk serving the files?

Now there is a new project on Squeaksource3 available that provides a static file HTTP server. It serves the Javascript files that make up the Amber IDE. MorphIDE accepts HTTP PUTs from the Amber IDE, whereupon it will (over)write the .js and .st files being PUT to filesystem. It will also regenerate the MorphIDE HTML file to load the new code that you've written in Amber.

VMIL

There is also an invitation to VMIL workshop that may be of interest to you.

5th Argentine Smalltalk Conference

You are invited to the 5th Argentine Smalltalk Conference - read more here.

Yesplan video

There is now a video online from Yesplan - a software written in Smalltalk using the Seaside webframework. It runs on Pharo with GLASS for persistence.

Extending SUnit

Frank plays with extending SUnit with theories.

More rumors on Dart and Smalltalk

Here are some more rumors on a possible relationship between the new Dart programming language from Google and Smalltalk.

Mhhh ... and we also know that Eric Clayberg is now also working for Google. Is it possible that Dart is the next fast and modular Smalltalk implementation that is deployed via Web browsers like Chrome?

There are also some infos from back in 2010 available on the net.

Let's see what the keynote will reveal and if Google is able to suprise me here.

One month until Dart is released

AFAIK Google will publish more infos on it's new programming language called "Dart" on GOTO conference in Aarhus in October. Dart is according to various sources a new structured programming language designed for the web.

Why is that interesting to Smalltalkers? Since it is created by Lars Bak (known from V8 JavaScript Engine and Strongtalk/Animorphic) and Gilad Bracha (known from Newspeak).

Can we therefore expect it to be more Smalltalk like? Dont know ... but in a month we will see.

Windows developer preview

Want to get a free developer preview on the new windows. Then look at MSDN for the ISO files.

Amber Smalltalk

JTalk is now renamed to Amber and it has a lot to offer now.

Seaside 3.0.6

is available. See the announcement, you can use the updated ConfigurationOfSeaside30.

Online ProfStef on JTalk

ProfStef is a nice app to teach you Smalltalk. It is now ported from Pharo to JTalk (a Smalltalk running on JavaScript) too so it is available online now.

TextLint integration

TextLint is a tool to check scientific writing for common style errors written in Pharo Smalltalk. There is now an integration into Emacs and TextMate. There is also a web version available online.

VMMaker repo moved

Since squeaksource.com had several outages in the past the VMMaker package (the one you require to build the Squeak and Pharo virtual machine) has now moved to another squeaksource instance: http://source.squeak.org.

Read more.

CogDroid

You want to Test Cog virtual machine to run Pharo on Android devices. Try with the initial relase of CogDroid.

Heretic Smalltalk selectors

Smalltalk is different - and even after years I get rembered by discusssions from time to time how different it really is!
Smalltalk is a real dynamic object system (with the language just built in) and unique in the world of computing.

While a function/method name in a class has to be unique so it could be called - it usually is a Symbol. You know all these #foo, #bar, #negated, ...

In Java you may call it foo() or bar() or negated().

But in Smalltalk this selector could be ANY object. Yes, yes - this is not a typo.
It could be any object, just try it. For instance with the integer 1:

|selectorThatCouldBeAnObject existingMethod|

selectorThatCouldBeAnObject := 1.

existingMethod := EllipseMorph methodDict at: #heading.

EllipseMorph methodDict at: selectorThatCouldBeAnObject put: existingMethod.

EllipseMorph new perform: selectorThatCouldBeAnObject

So the message could even be the object that is receiving the message/itself as message:

| existingMethod receiver|

existingMethod := EllipseMorph methodDict at: #heading.

receiver := EllipseMorph new.

EllipseMorph methodDict at: receiver put: existingMethod.

receiver perform: receiver

Cool !!!

Alan Kay once said that "Smalltalk is object-oriented, but it should have been message oriented."

And as we now know a message is an object and an object could be a message. Mhhh - have to think more on this...

ROSScratch

You want to control your home robot using Scratch? Then look at ROSScratch project.

Dynatree for Seaside

I've wrapped the MIT licensed dynatree widget as part of the JQueryWidgetBox project. So if you need a tree in your web app just try it.

TSUG meeting

If you want to know more why Bombardier is using Pharo and Seaside then visit the next TSUG meeting in Toronto on Sep. 12th.

Pharo/Seaside experience

Francois Stephany reports on his experience with using Pharo and Seaside to develop a web application.

Small seaside image

Pavel created a small seaside image based on the small Pharo kernel image. So you could have a running seaside app in 4.3MB.

Java and late file dialog instantiation

Interesting: Java provides a JFileChooser to provide a file dialog for the
Swing UI framework. Typically I create objects when I need them - so
it was clear to me that I instantiate the class in this example only when
a button is clicked (most other examples on the web instantiate the dialog with the main window):

package foo;



import java.awt.BorderLayout;



public class TestWindow extends JFrame {



	private JPanel contentPane;



	public static void main(String[] args) {

		

		EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

			public void run() {

				try {

					TestWindow frame = new TestWindow();

					frame.setVisible(true);

				} catch (Exception e) {

					e.printStackTrace();

				}

			}

		});

	}



	/**

	 * Create the frame.

	 */

	public TestWindow() {

		setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

		setBounds(100, 100, 450, 300);

		contentPane = new JPanel();

		contentPane.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(5, 5, 5, 5));

		contentPane.setLayout(new BorderLayout(0, 0));

		setContentPane(contentPane);

		

		JButton btnOpenFileDialog = new JButton("Open file dialog");

		btnOpenFileDialog.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {

			public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0) {

				onClickedButton();			

			}

		});

		contentPane.add(btnOpenFileDialog, BorderLayout.CENTER);

	}



	protected void onClickedButton() {

		JFileChooser fileChooser = new JFileChooser();

		fileChooser.showOpenDialog(this); // open modal on main window		

	}

}

When you run this simple application within Eclipse, click the "Open" button and
close the file dialog via "Cancel" you will notice that an
exception will appear on stdout as soon as you close the main window:

Exception while removing reference: java.lang.InterruptedExceptionjava.lang.InterruptedException

	at java.lang.Object.wait(Native Method)

	at java.lang.ref.ReferenceQueue.remove(Unknown Source)

	at java.lang.ref.ReferenceQueue.remove(Unknown Source)

	at sun.java2d.Disposer.run(Unknown Source)

	at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

So the app is not closed correctly and error free.

And I found a workaround, the exception will not appear if you
create an instance of JFileDialog as early as possible in your app:

	public static void main(String[] args) {

		new JFileChooser();

                ...

Since it is not referenced this instance becomes directly a victim of
the next GC - but anyway creating an instance of JFileChooser right at the beginning seem
to trigger an initialization that is required to prevent the above problem.

Thought I would share this if others run into the same problem. Another possibility is to use a better system.

Airflowing goes live

Airflowing, a new seaside application isn’t invite-only anymore - so anyone is able to use their commercial service. Read more or try it out.

FSGit updated

FSGit got an update to the new Filesystem implementation. Read more.

Squeak in Jail

If you want to limit your seaside app (chrooted seaside instance) for security reason this may be

an old but interesting blog post to read.

Smalltalk on JVM 2

An update: watch the video called "A Renaissance VM: One Platform, Many Languages" on this site from Oracle. Highly recommended if you are interested on Smalltalk and (J)VM's.

Smalltalk on JVM

Found Smalltalk mentioned in a Java 7 presentation from Oracle citing Mark Roos from Roos Instruments, Inc:

"“We were able to implement all of the Smalltalk constructs... using invokedynamic to execute Smalltalk code on the JVM. ...The ease of putting a true dynamic language on the JVM was a wonder in itself.”

Note that with JSR292 there is more support for dynamic languages on JVM.

Found a presentation about the "RTalk" project to run Smalltalk on JVM and there is work going on as this message from the open jdk mailinglist proves.

Even when it runs on JVM - I still expect it to be limited compared to a Smalltalk running on a Smalltalk VM. The future will show if I'm right.

Pharo by Example in Spanish

The book Pharo by Example is now translated into Spanish too.

OCR and Pharo

Gary Chambers (creator of the Polymorph UI framework for Pharo) is currently building an image capture, OCR and data processing system using Smalltalk and he provides a first screenshot.

His company Pinesoft is using Smalltalk a lot as you can read here. Nice!

ESUG Seaside sprint

VMware (formerly GemStone) is sponsoring the Seaside sprint after ESUG. Thanks!

Two new chapters for Pharo book

Stef shares two new chapters for the Pharo book. You can also find them here.

This time on floats and little numbers. Feel free to review and send comments to him.

PetitParser Tutorial

Tudor Girba published a tutorial on how to use the PetitParser as part of the moose book.

One ring to rule them all

Refactoring Browser, Packaging Software like Monticello and other Smalltalk tools mostly work on their own code/meta model. What about a unified model?

Veronica Uquillas is currently working on Ring - a unifying and foundational model

infrastructure for Pharo. The goals of the project are:

- Provide a common API at structural and runtime level

- Allow tools to interact and integrate directly with the host environment (Pharo)

- Support history analysis

You can find the code at squeaksource, there is also a continuos integration job

and the latest updates now try to integrate Ring. There is also a presentation available.

Binary Literals

Binary Literals - a new feature of Java 7.

So beside 0x... notation for hexadecimal you can now write 0b... for binary. What a step forward (for the Java community).

I still like Smalltalks base/radix notation since I can freely choose the base (binary, octal, decimal, ...)

2r10010010 

16rA000

...

LDAP and Seaside

If you want to integrate LDAP authentication into your seaside app then read charlies blog entry.