Squeak-dev March 1998

squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

67 participants
130 discussions

Just some thoughts
by Joerg Brunsmann 23 Mar '98

23 Mar '98

Hi, first of all let me express that Squeak is very cool (there is no other term) and that the work done so far deserves full respect, if I may say so. Anyway, I've been following this mailing list for quite a while now and inspired by reading 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' by Eric S. Raymond (http://earthspace.net/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar.html) and Netscape's 'open-source culture' efforts regarding the Communicator Source Code Release (http://www.mozilla.org) I get the impression that S Q U E A K N E E D S C O O R D I N A T I O N ! Why? Ok, Squeak is free and everyone is invited to use Squeak for things he wants to do with Squeak. But if someone wants to use Squeak as a base for his own experiments or development he needs a reliable core system to be ensured of using a high quality starting point. For example, if I'm tired of using tools like yacc for writing a programming language parser and I want to use a Smalltalk environment invoking T-Gen as a parser generator. Since someone asked twice if T-Gen has been ported to Squeak this is a reasonable szenario. Correct me if I'm wrong but noone has answered the question yet if T-Gen is ported to Squeak and noone knows if someone is porting this piece of software to Squeak at the moment. Perhaps three or four are doing this port in parallel right now; and of course that would not be what we desire. At least I don't know if this is the case. This is dissapointing since Squeak and T-Gen are great pieces of software and they both would benefit from each other. Sadly enough T-Gen is just one example. Summarizing from my mind I give a not necessarly complete list of current Squeak projects: o Core Class Library o Native Widgets o Self Booting Squeak o Double clickable Squeak o Applications (Draw80, T-Gen, Siren, ...) o Virtual Machine Hacking o Platform Porting o Documentation Having so many different branches of development (which I will focus later) it is clear that there is at least some need for coordination. Given so many excellent and experienced developers (for example, how many people in the world are able to implement a Windoze Look and Feel in Smalltalk?) which are involved in the Squeak project the non-coordination is very annoying. But where coordination could take place? Who could coordinate? Sorry guys, but sometimes I read the term 'Squeak central'. If 'Squeak central' exists it is responsible for development coordination, isn't it. I fully agree that coordination is rather a time consuming task which is not done in spare time. Assuming that I demand for volunteers who think they have time, experience, knowledge and Squeak insights for doing this. I regret that I can't fullfill any of the above mentioned request. But let me expand this demand to my squeaking wish list: 1. First of all I want a maintained Web Site (http://www.squeak.org) which contains up to date information and links for downloading latest versions for each platform and description of current projects. 2. Downloads should be distinguished between distributions with and without source code. So the most frequent download without source code should contain one virtual machine (JIT), one virtual image, one sources file, one changes file. This is nothing new you say. Right, but in addition the download should also consist of a directory containing applications (you can also use the term parcels for that) which are file-in's for extending the base virtual image for specific needs. Having said that, I demand a virtual image that only contains the core Squeak class library. Every user is able to create an image for his own purpose. For example, I think Morphic is cool but it is very slow. I get used to the MVC paradigm and I want to stick with that. That means I have to delete the Morphic framework each time I download a new image. Why not creating an morphic application which a Squeak user can easily integrate into his image? I don't give you the huge list of further applications that could be loaded into a Squeak virtual image; you know them, don't you? 3. Repeating myself: the virtual image should contain only a core class library which serves as a base for loadable applications. 4. Although I get the impression that native widgets don't have high development priority I think it is annoying that we don't have them looking at so many differents interface components of contemporary operating systems. 5. Having native widgets we don't need a self booting Squeak, do we? 6. Porting the most important applications of freely available Smalltalk code to Squeak. 7. Platform Porting and Virtual machine hacking should be independently done by experts having the Windoze branch and the Unix branch. Other operating systems should be supported as well after new releases for the main operating systems evolve. 8. Documentation for Virtual Machine Hacking can only be done by those who are writing the virtual machine, of course. From my point of view, it is ok, if the core class library is documented as comments in the source code. Tutorials with examples should be loadable as applications. I'm sorry, if I misunderstood the concepts and ideas behind Squeak. Thanks for reading and for your comments. Have fun, Joerg

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Primitive fails on denied access
by TANGUAY, LUC 23 Mar '98

23 Mar '98

The method FileDirectory>>primLookupEntryIn:index: fails when I try to read into a directory I don't have access (I don't have the right permissions). What would be the best fix? In such case, I would like to be informed that my request failed but would like to be able to continue (read the next directory for example). Luc -- Luc Tanguay, ing. Bell Canada Recherche et génie logiciel/Software Engineering & Research 1050 Beaver Hall, 2e étage/2nd floor Montréal (Québec) H2Z 1S4, Canada Tél./phone: (514) 786-6440 mailto:Luc.Tanguay@bell.ca

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Re: Self and pure object thinking
by Luis Quijano 23 Mar '98

23 Mar '98

Hi, An interesting but little "marketed" notation appears in the book: Title: Object-Oriented Systems Analysis Authors: David W. Embley, Barry D. Kurtz, Scott N. Woodfield ISBN: 0-13-629973-3 Publisher: Yourdon Press Year: 1992 Regards, Luis Quijano quijano(a)panasoft.com p.s. Check-out the Smalltalk Links at http://www.panasoft.com/stlinks/ -=-=-

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RE: Modularizing (Was: How to setup squeak as an NT service)
by Alejandro F. Reimondo 22 Mar '98

22 Mar '98

>So I definitely see modular images as really necessary, but >I still don't know how to implement them. If anyone has any >hint... Parcels in VisualWorks (new version, Siena) is a good implementation of building packages of classes, methods and objects in a file that can be bound to the image dynamically. They are fully implemented in Smalltalk and is a recommended reading. Ale. ---------- Desde: Boris G. Chr. Shingarov[SMTP:usib6tfj@pol.ru] Enviado el: Domingo 22 de Marzo de 1998 00:56 Para: squeak(a)cs.uiuc.edu Asunto: Modularizing (Was: How to setup squeak as an NT service) <<Archivo: ATT00000.txt>>

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RE: How to setup squeak as an NT service
by Alejandro F. Reimondo 22 Mar '98

22 Mar '98

Jarvis wrote: >Sounds like another reason for a headless Squeak that doesn't need to >open a window. :-) Sounds like another reason to modularize the VM and the image... If we "modularize" the VM to have the opportunity to load its parts when the "upper (image) objects" need it, the complete building of the VM can be done dynamically. In commercial versions of Smalltalk like PPD, the user have the possibility to write some primitives in an external module (e.g. DLL) and bind/unbind a service to a primitive number to expand or patch VM behavior. If we work a little in the Squeak Interpreter layer in this direction (I hope) it will be more easy (and fun) to produce VM plug-ins (for example to provide network, audio, video capabilities ONLY when the upper-object support is present in the image and needs it). I think that we must try to fractionate the image, and support dynamically bound subspaces of objects. It will help to produce native OS wrappers and other loadable-on-demand frameworks. And, ..., the Squeak's window creation must be done in the upper level (in Smalltalk) and not by the VM ! Provably all the GUI and resource work done when image boots must be reduced to be minimum and code moved to Smalltalk startUp code. Cheers, Ale. Alejandro F. Reimondo Feel free to visit Smalltalk User Group of Argentina (SUGAR) at http://www.sugarWeb.com >From: Andreas Raab [SMTP:raab@isgnw.cs.Uni-Magdeburg.DE] >> Your best bet is probably to use the SRVANY utility from the NT resource >> kit, which allows any executable to be run as a service under NT. Just >> a thought, hope it helps. >It's the right idea but at the moment Squeak will open a window and I >don't think that will work when running as a service (although I didn't >try). >Andreas

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Re: Self and pure object thinking
by Terry Raymond 21 Mar '98

21 Mar '98

On Fri, 20 Mar 1998 17:20:21 -0600, Mark Mayfield wrote: >Models built using this pure object notation can still be implemented in >languages like Smalltalk and Java through the use of notation-to-implementation >patterns. The only way to grow complex systems is with simple principles. >Complex notations are counter productive when trying to model complex >systems. > >If this is a crazy idea...let me know. Sounds great to me. I find most of the formal the notation very distracting and therefore I don't use it. The concepts in smalltalk are few and simple, having a similar OOA notation would be nice. Terry Raymond Crafted Smalltalk (401) 846-6573 http://www.craftedsmalltalk.com

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Re: Self and pure object thinking
by Steve Dekorte 21 Mar '98

21 Mar '98

>You might find the page on prototype based languages in Rainer Blome's Bookmarks >interesting: > >http://www.physik3.gwdg.de/~rainer/ That page has some really good info. I've summarized it in this chart: http://www.slip.net/~dekorte/Proto/Chart.html Steve

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#raisedToInteger:
by sqrmax＠cvtci.com.ar 20 Mar '98

20 Mar '98

Hi. Errr... I meant that fractions didn't understand #raisedToInteger: on their own, that they inherited it from a superclass. Well, whatever. Andres.

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Re: How to setup squeak as an NT service
by Andreas Raab 20 Mar '98

20 Mar '98

> > Your best bet is probably to use the SRVANY utility from the NT resource > kit, which allows any executable to be run as a service under NT. Just > a thought, hope it helps. It's the right idea but at the moment Squeak will open a window and I don't think that will work when running as a service (although I didn't try). Andreas -- Linear algebra is your friend - Trigonometry is your enemy. +===== Andreas Raab ============= (raab(a)isg.cs.uni-magdeburg.de) =====+ I Department of Simulation and Graphics Phone: +49 391 671 8065 I I University of Magdeburg, Germany Fax: +49 391 671 1164 I +=============< http://isgwww.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~raab >=============+

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Re: headless vm changes suggestions
by Tim Rowledge 20 Mar '98

20 Mar '98

On Fri 20 Mar, Georg Gollmann wrote: > Does this mean that the image HAS to know whether it runs headless or not ? No, not at all. If you were to change the startup sequence to check for some flag for head/nohead, you could simply do/not-do the #beDisplay. The image would still be able to think of itself as having a Display form, but the VM would not have been told about it and so no window would appear and no attempt to call ioShowDisplay() would occur. There may be some issues about the event loop for some machines and situations. > For my current applications it is very convenient to have a single image > that runs unchanged either with or without a window. Sounds fine to me. For you a suitable flag for headlessness might be the existence of a certain file, or maybe an environment variable, or maybe some #getAttribute: result that refelcts a command line option for the VM. It's up to you. I think this is the key point of my suggestion; it is simply a mechanism to allow the VM to not open a 'real' window until and unless you want one. To extend the point a little, a headless image could still open a window if some error ocurred that needed attention, by adding the send of #beDisplay somewhere in the Notifier opening. I guess one might want to keep an image flag indicating whetheror not the window had already been opened. Of course, with more advanced work, the notifier might choose to use a socket to inform some remote machine of the problem and keep the image headless. > So it´s "your mileage may vary", I guess. Most definitely. With the suggested VM changes, nobody would even notice the difference in a 'normal' image. tim -- Useful random insult:- Watching programs not listed in TV Guide. Tim Rowledge: rowledge(a)interval.com (w) +1 (650) 856-7230 (w) tim(a)sumeru.stanford.edu (h) <http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim>

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