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...