Squeakware

Squeakware is a compact, customizable Squeak-built-in Linux. It's based on "Slax Linux". Click on the images to enlarge:

 

Reimplementing Eclipse?

If they really want to bring more Smalltalk experience into Eclipse I would vote for reimplementing it using a pure and dynamic OO language. ;)

Maybe they should have a look at Squeak - it's open source, not controlled by vendors and it's community is growing fast.

Seaside in O'Reilly article

Seaside (the Smalltalk web framework based on Squeak) is mentioned in an O'Reilly article:

"Web programming is an absolute disaster. After ten years of Java programming, we still haven't built a framework to get the Back button right. Web applications are stateless, so web applications scale better. But stateless applications are hard to build, and our frameworks do not give us much help. With most Java web frameworks, you basically build many unrelated pieces of the application using servlets or JSP, and then wire them together by manually saving objects that you need in temporary storage objects called sessions."

...

"Continuation-based web frameworks generally make web development much easier by simulating a stateful application."

...

"The best continuation-based frameworks are developed in dynamic languages. By far, the most robust is Seaside. It's a framework based on Squeak, a Smalltalk dialect. Seaside features fantastic debugging support--you can actually inspect, debug, and change your code from a browser"

I also like the Conclusion:

"In Beyond Java, I make the case that Java's not dead yet, but for the first time in nearly a decade, we're seeing compelling innovation happen beyond the borders of Java. These four technologies will play an important role in the near future. Watch them closely."

But I would not totally agree: in Smalltalk innovation happens all the time!

Squeak News Mailinglist

A new mailinglist for News around the Squeak Smalltalk system is now up and running.

Yet another frustrated developer...

Currently Java (especially J2EE) is getting too complex and this will frustrate more and more developers.

It is true that compared to Java you are much more productive - but Smalltalk is still the winner for developer productivity. It is also much easier to use - if you are willing to think in plain objects and messages. So leave the curly braces behind you and start by reading one of the free Smalltalk books.

Squeak homepage

The new Squeak homepage is up and running. Visit http://www.squeak.org and read more. It is based on SmallWiki.

Reinventing Smalltalk, one decade at a time

An interesting presentation from Sam Ruby:

"Reinventing Smalltalk, one decade at a time"

Videos on seaside

Stephane Ducasse did some videos on Seaside (a Smalltalk web framework).

VA Smalltalk 7.0

The Windows download for VA Smalltalk 7.0 (VAST) is available here. Downloads for Linux, AIX and Solaris will be available soon.

VA Smalltalk is the former VisualAge for Smalltalk product from IBM. The product development and support is now done by Instantiations - and I'm sure this will help moving the product and customers forward.

Susie - Smalltalk scripting

Susie is an attempt to provide a light weight scripting engine using Smalltalk as the language. it is based on
PublicDomainSmallTalk, which in turn is based on LittleSmalltalk.

SqueakFest 05

SqueakFest 05 has come to a successfull conclusion. Alans Keynote is also available online.

Cloth again

Orion Elenzil put together a nice Croquet demo.
Read more here. He also points to a silly flash file called the "Falling Woman demo". If you ever wanted to know the difference between Vernet integration and Euler read about his first demo.

Seaside Presentation Movie

Avi Bryant presented his "Seaside" web framework to the Vancouver LISP User Group. You read about the presentation and download the movie (~250 MB) here.

Squeak and Smalltalk related videos

ESUG (European Smalltalk Usergroup) announced the following videos available at Google Video:

What is Squeak? (Alan Kay)
http://tinyurl.com/a53zm

Squeak and Croquet Demo Etech03 (Alan Kay and David A. Smith)
http://tinyurl.com/bywxe

Croquet: A Collaboration Architecture (Alan Kay and David A. Smith)
http://tinyurl.com/cgcms

The Computer Revolution hasn't happend yet. Keynote OOPSLA 1997 (Alan
Kay)
http://tinyurl.com/9vgdl

Beyond VI -- Talk from euroko03 (Marcus Denker)
http://tinyurl.com/dczzt

Alan Kay: Education in the Digital Age
http://tinyurl.com/8trwq

Alan Kay: Graphical User Interfaces
http://tinyurl.com/daocv

Bytecode-to-bytecode adaptive optimization for Smalltalk (Eliot Miranda)
http://tinyurl.com/dparf

Dan Ingalls: Object-Oriented Programming
http://tinyurl.com/784jk

Alan Kay: Doing with Images Makes Symbols
http://tinyurl.com/cpgjz

Self; The Video
http://tinyurl.com/8q6ku

Doug Engelbart: The Demo
http://tinyurl.com/d9r9w

Writing customized UI's using Morphic

Had a little bit time this evening. Not enough to do anything serious with Smalltalk - but enough to answer a question on the Squeak mailing list by writing a simplified "Handy Simulator". It's only behavior is to switch the screen on and off by using the power button.

It's a nice example of using morphic to build a customized user interface. The package is registered on SqueakSource and can directly be loaded into squeak using the SqueakMap package browser.

Free OmniBase

Looks like the OmniBase Object Database for Smalltalk is now free. The download page includes:

"OmniBase is available for free for commercial and educational purposes. Free version of OmniBase is prohibited to be used in the oil or military industries."

There are versions for several Smalltalk dialects: Squeak, Dolphin, VisualWorks, VisualAge and ST/X.

VAST7 RC1

Eric mentioned that the Release Candidate 1 (RC1) of the Windows Version of VA Smalltalk 7 is available on the Instantiations website.

Bicephale project

Michal announced the first version of his "Bicephale project" which tries to change Seaside to make it handle elegantly the display of static, long-lived objects.

Note that it is early code - but since the package contains no modification to base Seaside classes it should be harmless to install it into your Seaside image.

Interim Pollock Release

Samuel S. Shuster has published an interim version of Pollock to the Cincom Public Repository. Pollock is the new GUI framework for VisualWorks Smalltalk.
Read more in the newsgroup or on his blog.

3D Browser

I've created a small flash tutorial last week and sent it to the editors of Bitwise Magazine. If you want to know how to create a 3D browser in Squeak Smalltalk then read here.

Many thanks to Huw Collingbourne for making it available.