Squeak-dev May 2001

squeak-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

143 participants
597 discussions

Re: New zip
by Bruce ONeel 28 May '01

28 May '01

Hi, Thanks very much. It's in 3.0/unstable-testPilot. cheers bruce Henrik Gedenryd <Henrik.Gedenryd(a)lucs.lu.se> wrote: > Squeak3.1a-4081.zip is ready. > > > -- > I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy

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Re: [EXPERIMENTAL!][GOODIE] HintingBrowser
by John Hinsley 28 May '01

28 May '01

danielv(a)netvision.net.il wrote: > > If you're planning on studying some code soon, I'd love to know if this > helps you any, or any other comments. > looks interesting, but I get a walkback on trying to file it in: MessageNotUnderstood:methodsFor:stamp and on trying to pop open a browser to see what 'might' be happening (as if I'd know ;-) ): className:methodName:isMeta: (it does look as though something got broken somewhere: the last debugger window can't be shut down until I close the browser). Squeak 3.1alpha cs 4081 on SuSE 6.4 Cheers John -- ****************************************************************************** Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?" Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft." ******************************************************************************

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Re: The license-free fonts, was: Re: Packaging Squeak for DebianGNU/Linux
by Richard A. O'Keefe 28 May '01

28 May '01

Concerning the encoding, one obvious consideration is whether existing Squeak code can already rely on various characters being classified as letters. What does the Squeak distribution "know" about the top 128? Character alphabet -> $a..$z only. Character euro This would need changing Character nbsp This would need changing Character asLowercase only recognises A..Z as upper case Character asUppercase only recognises a..z as lower case Character isAlphanumeric only recognises a..zA..Z Character isLetter only recognises a..zA..Z Character isLowercase only recognises a..z Character isUppercase only recognises A..Z Character isSpecial only accepts ASCII characters Character isoToSqueak would become ^self String Case{Ins,S}ensitiveOrder only handle a..zA..Z It's fair to say that while the Squeak character set is a subset of MacRoman, most of the Squeak image hasn't actually caught on to this yet, so won't notice if it's changed. Naturally I have not been able to hunt down everything that might know about various characters.

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[OT] Re: Squeak substitute for Dialog warn:
by John Hinsley 28 May '01

28 May '01

gb wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: John Hinsley <jhinsley(a)telinco.co.uk> > To: <squeak(a)cs.uiuc.edu> > Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 11:28 PM > Subject: Re: Squeak substitute for Dialog warn: > > > I like the idea of the OU using Squeak (it has a combination of > > cuteness, power and openess which I find difficult to resist) and it'd > > be nice to present them with something which could simply be filed in to > > a Squeak on any platform which students happened to have. > > > > I also think that there is much better material out there than the OU > > stuff, but that's a matter for their consciences! > > Well, I think I have to come to the defence of the OU, because a)it is an > introductory course in computing when other Universities' Smalltalk modules > are higher level Yes, but (for example) compare the OU's material with (say) Ivan Tomek's book. Granted Ivan doesn't cover the absolute newbie ground or the full M206 syllabus, but I'd argue that it's completely useable by newbies and covers much the same ground with greater clarity. > b) we're lucky that there are still some Universities that > have the common sense not to abandon Smalltalk and jump on the Java > bandwagon, and the OU is one of them. Yes, but this doesn't mean that we should just hold our noses and swallow the medicine. It's great that there is a course, but it could be better. I find the lack of any clear feedback path for M206 rather disturbing, as that would be a way to improve it generally, as well as deal with silly typos. c) I originally only registered with > the OU because of Smalltalk, all other local Universities use C++, Java and > C, which is what I didn't want. Me too! > > I'll get with you by email about Squeakbooks. Please. I may also need some help on gridding! Cheers John -- ****************************************************************************** Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?" Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft." ******************************************************************************

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Re: Embedding Squeak in REALbasic?
by reic0024＠d.umn.edu 27 May '01

27 May '01

Quoting Bijan Parsia <bparsia(a)email.unc.edu>: > Probably the simplest thing is to use AppleEvents with squeak as the > backend and RealBasic as the front end. Does Squeak accept AppleEvents? I wasn't sure of this, so was thinking it'd do it through sockets, passing some standardly formatted data back and forth. XML or something. That could be kind of annoying and/or slow locally, but you could networkify it easily. :) > This needs fleshing out, of course. You prolly would want to eliminate the > *appearance* of "two apps", perhaps by running squeak headless. Off > course, you could try to uses some UI OSAXEN, but that's as much trouble > as just using Squeak stuff (though they will be native widgets). I assumed the headless part. The Squeak development could be done with a usual VM on the to-be-embedded image, or possibly by turning the Squeak UI on and off via some secret switch in the app. Aaron

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Re: Embedding Squeak in REALbasic?
by Andrew C. Greenberg 27 May '01

27 May '01

> Probably the simplest thing is to use AppleEvents with squeak as the > backend and RealBasic as the front end. The biggest problem I've had in addressing embedding issues is the inability to implement a robust callback facility. I would love to see a sound embeddable, perhaps reentrant, version of the VM.

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[ENH][GOODIE] CommandWindow V1.1 (new release)
by David T. Lewis 27 May '01

27 May '01

CommandWindow 1.1 Previous released version: 1.0 Requires OSProcess 2.2 A Unix style command shell written in Smalltalk, with a Morphic terminal window (tty only, no termcap stuff). This is beginning to be a rather useful utility for people who use Squeak on Unix or Linux. In principle this could be used on non-Unix systems, although the ports of OSProcess to other platforms have yet to be written. - Dave Changes since version 1.0: 1) Added an 'edit' file editor command to CommandShell as a shell builtin. This makes it convenient to edit files from a CommandShell without resorting to an external editor (vi or emacs), and also allows command output to be easily displayed in an editor in Smalltalk. Note: There was a version 1.0.1 patch release posted. This version replaces the 1.0.1 patch and contains a nicer implementation of the 'edit' builtin. Try 'edit /etc/hosts' to edit a file, or 'who | edit' and 'cat /proc/version | edit' to pipe Unix commands into Smalltalk text editors. 2) Added an 'inspect' shell builtin to allow command output or file contents to be easily piped to a Smalltalk inspector. Try 'cat /etc/hosts | inspect' or 'inspect < /etc/hosts'. 3) Moved class UnixCommand out of OSProcess and into CommandWindow. 4) Fixed semantics of argument name expansion in UnixCommand. Problem: Argument expansion in a CommandShell resulted in arguments being expanded to fully qualified file names relative to the file system root, even if the specified file was in the current working directory. The correct expansion in this case would be just the file name, not the fully qualified path.

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Re: The license-free fonts, was: Re: Packaging Squeak for Debian GNU/Linux
by Richard A. O'Keefe 27 May '01

27 May '01

Concerning the fonts in Stable Squeak and whether or not they can be plugged into SqC Squeak: What I want is (Serif | Sans-Serif) x (Proportional | MonoSpace) x (Plain | Italic | Bold) x (10 | 12 | 14) point physical size on screen fonts that all have the _same_ characters in the same positions. In Squeak 3.0.1, New York 10 and New York 12 show ^ as up arrow and _ as left arrow, but New York 18 and New York 24 show them as ^ _. The character that is a heart in New York 18 is a robot in New York 24 and New York 12. The character that seems to be a euro (I shall never understand why a small kanagroo-like animal from Australia has a character named after it that doesn't even look like a kangaroo) in New York 12 is unavailable in the other sizes. And these aren't even other "fonts", just different sizes of the same "font". This country has two official languages, and for one of them I need a set of vowels with macrons. Standard practice is to take fonts that have vowels with umlauts and bodge them. One gets used to reading the umlauted letters as if they had macrons anyway. The MacRoman character set has all the umlauted letters I want, but \"E and \"O are up in the block of 30-some characters that the Squeak fonts omit. I'd also rather like middle dot. Don't mistake me: I'm grateful for what I've got; it's worth a lot more than I paid for it! But *IF* something is going to be done about fonts, I hope these issues will be addressed. PS: what do I do to get more fonts in the Cmd-k menu than just New York? There _are_ more fonts in the system, after all.

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SqF purpose: supporting the Squeak community?
by Paul Fernhout 27 May '01

27 May '01

All- Of the things I've posted on the Squeak Foundation mailing list, I think this one is worthy of wider circulation to the main Squeak list itself. I'd like to get opinions on it from people here who otherwise may not have taken an interest in the Squeak Foundation yet. My reason for posting it is precisely to see if such a purpose would create wider interest in the foundation itself. In short, the issue is, forming a: Squeak "Community" Foundation instead of a: Squeak "Artifacts" Foundation What do people on the Squeak list think? -Paul Fernhout Kurtz-Fernhout Software ========================================================= Developers of custom software and educational simulations Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Squeakfoundation]SqF purpose: supporting the Squeak community? Date: Sat, 26 May 2001 14:25:44 -0400 From: Paul Fernhout <pdfernhout(a)kurtz-fernhout.com> Reply-To: squeakfoundation(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org Organization: Kurtz-Fernhout Software To: squeakfoundation(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org All- On reflection, as I try to reconcile Andreas Raab's perspective with my own perspective, I wonder if we are both looking at the Squeak Foundation statement of purpose through the wrong end of the telescope. That is, we are both looking inwards to discussing purposes and projects to support "Squeak the artifact" as opposed to looking outwards to purposes and projects to support "Squeak the community". The two are naturally related, but the choice of perspective might have a profound influence on how we all think about the Squeak Foundation, as well as how the Squeak Foundation carries out its operations and sets its priorities. We could switch the SqF purpose to a "community" focused one about "supporting Squeak community processes" instead of a "code" or "content" focused one about "supporting Squeak technical artifact handling". Such a shift in focus might allow the Squeak Foundation to better view and handle issues related to conflicts between pink plane (present) and blue plane (future) Squeak activities. Perhaps one of the reasons we have not been thinking this way so far is that many generous individuals in the Squeak community have on their own (or through allied institutions) already created and maintained mailing lists, Wikis, and Web servers related to Squeak. They have done this so well, and for so long, and with such enthusiasm, that we have come to take for granted the fundamental community infrastructure behind the Squeak phenomena. The social and technical infrastructure underlying the Squeak community has become invisible (except perhaps to the actual providers of it). Yet, there still remain rough edges, for example with the Wiki technical infrastructure as Simon Michael pointed out on 25 May 2001. This example shows the potential benefit of an organization dedicated to among other things ensuring reliable community services (with more resources at its disposal than that of, say, an individual at a university). This would be especially true if the Squeak community should suddenly grow immensely in response to a sudden breakthrough release or even just experience sustained exponential growth through word of mouth. How would this shift in perspective change the wording of the purpose? Here is the current purpose showing an artifact focus: : The Squeak Foundation's purpose is: : To assist in the evolution of Squeak into its ultimate expression : as an exquisite personal and collaborative computing environment : that is open, well supported, and freely available : across the great majority of modern platforms and operating systems. Here is a purpose with more of a community focus: : The Squeak Foundation's purpose is: : To support the vitality and evolution of a chaordic community : creating, maintaining, enhancing, discussing, and using : an exquisite personal and collaborative computing ecosystem : of tools, components, infrastructure, knowledge, and content : derived from or inspired by Squeak or Dynabook technology : which are open, well supported, and freely available : and make use of ever increasing computing power for humane ends. For me, this purpose passes the test of: 'If we could achieve that, my life would have meaning.' http://www.chaordic.org/what_des.html Of course, this purpose isn't exactly achievable because it is more a process of ongoing activity than a realizable goal. But that's a minor quibble, and for me it defines a direction worth striving towards. As a shorthand, one can abbreviate this entire purpose in casual conversation as: "To support the Squeak community and its computing ecosystem." However, I think the longer formal definition is needed for detailed long-range decision making, and should be part of a related non-profit's legal charter. One could think of SqF as the VM underlying the Squeak community. Note that under this new purpose, the Squeak Foundation itself might not be [ http://www.chaordic.org/ ] chaordic at first even if it supports chaordic processes in the larger Squeak community (although I think it should be nonetheless, to preserve accountability to the community). It also presumes -- I think correctly -- that what is going on already with the Squeak mailing list community and current development processes is to a large extent chaordic in the way it is self-organizing. Also note the principles discussed on the list before could remain pretty much as they are now. I added the last clause in the purpose in part related to the recent comment I made on the Squeak list about Squeak file seek primitives needing to support 64 bit offsets, given IBM's announcement of 400GB desktop drives likely in the next couple of years. Moore's law and related trends mean computers at the same cost will be about 1000x faster and bigger for the same cost in somewhat over ten years, and about 1,000,000X faster in about twenty to thirty years. Alan Kay's Dynabook concept was in part envisioned assuming this trend. Ten to twenty years is easily the lifetime of any foundation, and I think the exponential aspect of the current computer technology situation should be explicitly taken into account in our plans. I wanted to include the terms "humane ends" http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn/?stage=1&word=humane http://www.context.org/ICLIB/DEFS/hsc.htm and Alan Kay's "Dynabook technology" http://dmoz.org/Computers/History/Pioneers/Kay,_Alan/ because, for me, this purpose then also takes on some aspects of Doug Englebart's Augment vision to improve humanity's ability to collaborate using computers [to solve pressing world problems] http://www.bootstrap.org/ as well as including some aspects from the Theodore Sturgeon short story "The Skills of Xanadu". I'd put Doug Englebart's "Augment" in explicitly in the purpose as in "Squeak, Dynabook, or Augment technology" if it would fly with people on this list. Augment-like technology is implicit in where the Squeak community is heading now with Nebraska. I feel the Augment collaboration ideal will only grow in prominence in Squeak as time goes by. When asked recently how the web could be made better, Alan Kay cited Doug Engelbart's 1968 Augment work, so I think there is some synergy there as Squeak moves into supplying more web services. In a way, all the concrete SqF projects Andreas Raab outlined on 25 May 2001 from faqs to web indexes are in effect collaborative Augment type projects. Kay, Engelbart, Sturgeon (and others like Vannevar Bush http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/flashbks/computer/bushf.htm or Ted Nelson) http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/ all had key visions of a hopeful future using computing around the 1950s and 1960s. A missing piece of these visions was the free software (Richard Stallman) http://www.fsf.org/ or open source models (Eric Raymond). http://www.opensource.org/ Free implementations of the still relevant parts of these visions done using Squeak can help steer computing to what I feel is the better end of the possible spectrum -- as far as helping humanity survive with style the upcoming "Singularity" related to the exponential growth of computing capacity foreseen by Vernor Vinge. http://www.extropy.org/eo/articles/vi.html http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/memelist.html?m=1 http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0134.html What sorts of concrete projects would fit under this purpose? Certainly all the ones Andreas listed, as well as any of the other ones mentioned so far on this list. In short, anything that would benefit the Squeak community would be possible, which would in many cases include projects directly benefiting the development of Squeak related artifacts. These projects could include: * coordinating one or more mainline Squeak releases, * strategic investments to get over hurdles hindering collaboration (whether involving handling licenses, underwriting development, or managing complexity), * rewriting a license for a version of Squeak without [Apple] fonts, * negotiating with Apple for an alternate base license if desired, * serving as a single point of contact for organizations outside the community (like foundations or businesses) wishing to support the grassroots Squeak community, * creating and organizing educational materials about Squeak, * supporting talks and conferences to promote Squeak usage, * helping catalog orphaned projects and passing them onto new maintainers, * creating mini-Faqs like Andreas suggested and distributing them on a regular basis, * providing free web hosting and mailing lists related to community projects (like SourceForge but for Squeak and running on Squeak), * creating or fostering self-organizing indexes of what is out there in the Squeak ecosystem and presenting these catalogs both within and without the community, * giving SqueakC a home if Disney is ever foolish enough to let them go, and * setting up community accepted processes to "bless" versions of various Squeak artifacts as they are collaboratively developed and released. Fundraising might then commence related to supporting such projects (although many of these could be done without funds by individuals willing to volunteer time or resources as they do now). Naturally, the Squeak Foundation might then undertake to raise significant funds from a variety of sources and spend them for targeted development, integration, or testing to support certain goals for subcommunities (say business Squeakers). As long as this funding was done in the light of supporting the community (say to overcome specific hurdles holding the community back), aspects of fairness related to keeping voluntary efforts going would be considered in the funding decisions as a matter of course -- since the fundamental purpose of a chaordic organization needs to be kept uppermost in mind in planning activities. The assurance that the Squeak Foundation would always put the interests of the Squeak community foremost would address a major concern related to the potential negative effects of such funding on volunteerism. (Not to say there might not still be significant negative effects from funding, but hopefully the community benefits would outweigh them.) To summarize, a purpose oriented around supporting a "community" rather than a "code base" permits more room for managing conflicting priorities related to using Squeak for: * educating creative children, * empowering individuals to be productive and creative, * helping groups to work together to solve complex problems, * making shippable applications, * creating embedded systems, * providing commercial web application services, * implementing in-house IT solutions, * exploring the frontiers of object computing, and finally * mitigating as best as possible any negative effects of the exponential growth of computing. All in all I feel this community perspective is more sustainable in the long run for supporting the common goals that have brought us all together to the Squeak mailing list. I also think the community perspective is an easier short run sell to everyone on the list [reconciling their diverse and sometimes conflicting interests]. -Paul Fernhout Kurtz-Fernhout Software ========================================================= Developers of custom software and educational simulations Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com _______________________________________________ Squeakfoundation mailing list Squeakfoundation(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/listinfo/squeakfoundation

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ARM9/Symbian OS
by Laurence Rozier 27 May '01

27 May '01

Hi, Does anyone have first-hand knowledge of porting Squeak to the Symbian OS(http://www.symbian.com), in particularly for the ARM9 based Nokia 9210 (http://www.nokia.com/phones/9210/specifications.html)? ... Ok, I'll take an informed guess :-) Cheers, Laurence __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/

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