SqueakSource servers

Here is an update on the current list of public squeak source servers:

• http://www.squeaksource.com
  
• http://source.squeakfoundation.org
  
• http://squeak.saltypickle.com
  
• http://source.impara.de
  
• http://mc.lukas-renggli.ch
  
• http://squeaksource.blueplane.jp
  

It's fun to browse the last one - it's japanese (from the SqSquare project) but I'm able to navigate and explore it. I like the FileMan package from it. It makes file handling in Squeak much easier.

If you want to set up an own squeak source server: some months ago I prepared an image for easily setting up SqueakSource.

Seaside at OSCON 2006

Avi is talking about Seaside at OSCON 2006

Obie Fernandez is lamenting about the vodoo magic of the seaside framework. It's not vodoo - just plain objects at work. ;)

SqueakCMI

A new website called SqueakCMI is available at:

     http://squeakcmi.org

The SqueakCMI Group is working to bring Squeak to more teachers and children to develop mathematics and science activities using Squeak as a platform.

Stupid Metrics

Found yet another article on language popularity:

A new TIOBE Software study has found that Java is the most popular programming language among developers
...
This popularity measurement uses a simple metric: the number of relevant search engine queries.


I would guess the reason is that you always need to look up Java stuff in reference manuals or tutorials which is easier to do using a search engine. Programming in Java without online access to the internet is a pain. When I do Java work the web browser is one of the most used tools ...

When doing Smalltalk work I just use the Smalltalk IDE's code browser since everything is there and fully accessible/changable. I can care about solving a problem instead of constantly looking up Java API and framework descriptions, bug reports, ...

Squeak on university

Markus Gaelli has published a short report (german only) from the "Day of informatics 2006" on the university Erlangen-Nürnberg where he presented Squeak to students. He also published some pictures.

SqueakGtk

SqueakGtk is an attempt to port the Gtk+ GUI to Squeak - and it looks like the project makes some progress.

Click on the image to enlarge:

VistaSmalltalk

Peter Fisk announced a demonstration of using Smalltalk classes instead of XAML to implement animations in the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). He expects Vista Smalltalk will shortly be capable of building online animated games and replacing Javascript for "Ajax" style applications.

Vista Smalltalk is built upon the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) classes and a bytecode runtime which depends only upon core WinFx classes.

14th International Smalltalk Conference 2006

The registration for International Smalltalk Conference organised by ESUG every year is now open.

The 14th International Smalltalk Conference 2006 will be held in Prague, Czech Republic.

SqueakNOS Mailinglist

There is a new mailinglist available for the Squeak NOS project.

SqueakNOS is trying to get rid of the OS under Squeak, and to implement all the operating system functionality in Smalltalk.

SqSquare collaboration software

Masashi Umezawa announced the SqSquare BETA release.

SqSquare is a new collaboration software built on Tweak. On a virtual broad desktop, you can freely add/edit objects, or even write eToys scripts. There is also a project swiki available.

SqueakNOS: A simple guide to writing HardwareDevices

The "Simple guide to writing HardwareDevices" for SqueakNOS
explains how to use Squeak Smalltalk to implement new
Hardware Devices.

Seaside, Baby dolls and high volume websites

Nevin Pratt shares some experiences about using Seaside for his web shop.

Swazoo Smalltalk web server

The Swazoo Smalltalk web server now has its own website:

http://www.swazoo.org/

Squeak NOS is back

The SqueakNOS (Squeak No Operating System) project is back.

SqueakNOS was an attempt to get Squeak running on x86 pcs without an underlying OS. The aim was to push as much of the hardware interface into the Smalltalk image as possible. There has been no progress since 2001 but now the original team is back and SqueakNOS is quite live and quite kicking!

You can either throw away your installed OS (not yet recommended ;) or use PC emulators like VMWare for a first test.

Squeak NOS is back

The SqueakNOS (Squeak No Operating System) project is back.

SqueakNOS was an attempt to get Squeak running on x86 pcs without an underlying OS. The aim was to push as much of the hardware interface into the Smalltalk image as possible. There has been no progress since 2001 but now the original team is back and SqueakNOS is quite live and quite kicking!

You can either throw away your installed OS (not yet recommended) or use PC emulators like VMWare for a first test.

SqueakNOS is back

The SqueakNOS (Squeak No Operating System) project is back.

SqueakNOS was an attempt to get Squeak running on x86 pcs without an underlying OS. The aim was to push as much of the hardware interface into the Smalltalk image as possible. There has been no progress since 2001 but now the original team is back and SqueakNOS is quite live and quite kicking!

You can either throw away your installed OS (not yet recommended) or use PC emulators like VMWare for a first test.

SqueakNOS is back

The SqueakNOS (Squeak No Operating System) project is back.

SqueakNOS was an attempt to get Squeak running on x86 pcs without an underlying OS. The aim was to push as much of the hardware interface into the Smalltalk image as possible. There has been no progress since 2001 but now the original team is back and SqueakNOS is quite live and quite kicking!

You can either throw away your installed OS (not yet recommended) or use PC emulators like VMWare for a first test.

Just 5 seconds ...

Just read about Sun finishing Java Enterprise Edition 5 on the heise newsticker (german only). One of the added user comments was:

"The Sun App server (Glassfish) really rocks. The thing is coming up in only 5 seconds together with derby and admin console. Compared to this most application servers should hide themselves ..."

That's really a huge step forward for J2EE - it should now be less painfull to always reboot the webserver after doing refactorings and program changes. ;)

I'm working with both: Java/J2EE and Smalltalk/Seaside and the situation is always the same:

I constantly see the Java world beeing happy about small things making this painfull style of development easier. Nobody asks the question if this change-compile-restart process makes sense in general!!!

On the other hand things like that have never been an issue in dynamic environments like Smalltalk. You dont have to restart the web server after large changes - even if you restructure large parts of your application framework or the web server code itself.

This is one factor why Smalltalk development makes you more productive - you can focus on solving the problem...

Comet implementation for Seaside web framework

Comet - the next web technology after AJAX allows the server to push updates to all clients (for instance web browsers) when they happen.

Diego Gomez Deck published a first implementation on SqueakMap (called Asteroid). It runs with KomHttpServer (Comanche), JSON and Seaside.

I had to patch the class FastSocketStream with a copy of SocketStream>>sendImmediatelly: to make it work in Squeak 3.8. (3.8 uses a different socket implementation and this method was unfortunately missing).

What it does:
=============
After running "ACometWidgets start" in the Squeak server image you can open more than one web browser on http://localhost:9999

You see some text fields - if you change their values the changes are sent to the server and from there dynamically pushed to the other client web browsers without having to use their "refresh" button.

By evaluating "ACometWidgets instance pushAlertHelloWorld." you get an example how to push data (in this case a java script with an alert) from the server to any connected web browser client. If you leave the Transcript open and close the browsers you will also get a notice that they disconnected.

Update:
I created a short Shockwave demo of Asteroids.

Forward to the past

For those of you who want to play with a simple Smalltalk image running on a Java VM (within a browser) try the following link:

ForwardToThePast.jnlp

Note that Java Webstart is required for your browser. Read the original announcement by Dan Ingalls. The running image is based on the mini.image from Squeak and runs slower than the C based VM but actually it works.