Squeak-dev December 2006

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Pie Charts, Bar Charts, Line Charts
by Robert Withers 20 Dec '06

20 Dec '06

Does anyone know of if there exist any charting morphs in the image? I am trying to present some data thanks, Robert

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Help with Processor Scheduling
by Ron Teitelbaum 20 Dec '06

20 Dec '06

Hi All, I was wondering if someone could help me answer a processor scheduling question. I'm running a process to test SSL memory. The data is received by a process running in a thread priority 40. The server is running priority 70. (both in the same image). There is one thread started as dataHandler for each send. When I run normally everything works fine. I send data and the dataHandler process picks it up and closes down. I'm seeing one send and about one receive before another send. When it's all done everything sent was received. The problem is that when I leave squeak and click on any other application, what I see is lots of sends but only rarely a receive. Then the application usually freezes up and has lots and lots of sockets open. Can someone explain to me why a test running and processes scheduled would act so differently if I click on another application? I tried to look at Processor activePriority hoping that since UI was running at 40 that maybe active priority was raised when Squeak was not the top most application. It appeared to stay at 40. Thanks for your help and any suggestions on how to diagnose this problem. Ron Teitelbaum

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Thue-Morse and performance: Squeak v.s. Strongtalk v.s. VisualWorks
by Klaus D. Witzel 19 Dec '06

19 Dec '06

Folks, I'm sorry to tell that Strongtalk is NOT that fast. I followed the instructions and *compiled* the following benchmark in Strongtalk, evaluated the same expression in Squeak and in VW and got the these results on my 1.73GHz 1.0GB WinXP notebook: - VisualWorks: 16799 (N.C. 7.4.1) - Strongtalk: 47517 (1.1.2) - Squeak: 56726 (3.9#7056) Below is the Squeak/VW source code, attached is the Strongtalk source code. The test is simple: a long loop around a single polymorphic call site "(instances at: i) yourself", straight forward inlineable and with intentionally unpredictable type information at the call site (modeled after the Thue-Morse sequence). I'm disappointed, Strongtalk was always advertised as being the fastest Smalltalk available "...executes Smalltalk much faster than any other Smalltalk implementation...", and now it shows to be in almost the same class as Squeak is :) :( Can somebody reproduce the figures, any other results? Have I done something wrong? BTW: congrats to the implementors of Squeak and, of course, to Cincom! (uhm, and also to the Strongtalk team!) /Klaus -------------- | instances base | base := (Array with: OrderedCollection basicNew with: SequenceableCollection basicNew with: Collection basicNew with: Object basicNew) , (Array with: Character space with: Date basicNew with: Time basicNew with: Magnitude basicNew). instances := OrderedCollection with: (base at: 1). 2 to: base size do: [:i | instances := instances , instances reverse. instances addLast: (base at: i)]. instances := (instances , instances reverse) asArray. ^ Time millisecondsToRun: [ 1234567 timesRepeat: [ 1 to: instances size do: [:i | (instances at: i) yourself]]] --------------

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A plea for 3.10
by Chris Muller 19 Dec '06

19 Dec '06

Its true mouseOverForKeyboardFocus isn't how "everyone else" (whomever that may be :) does it and therefore feels unnatural to many experienced computer users, including me.. at first. However after tolerating Squeaks "weirdness" for a while, I soon appreciated how simple, consistent, and efficient it is. mouseOver-for-focus can also be called "point-and-play". That's how a novice can "learn to how to use Squeak". INSTRUCTIONS FOR HOW TO USE SQUEAK 1) point the mouse to whatever object interests you 2) press a button or buttons (on either the mouse or keyboard) to manipulate the object That's it. No exceptions. What "everyone else" wants is "clickForKeyboardFocus" meaning, the only way to change focus, is to click somewhere. This creates ambiguity for what clicking does, sometimes it manipulates the UI, sometimes it simply shifts keyboard focus (but only if you're careful not to accidently click-activate the surrounding widgetry, so the user is laboring just to switch focus). With mouseOver-for-focus, the hand indicates where focus is. It's not always obvious with click-For-Focus, the user must remember where he was or stop and ask himself, "where am I?" scanning the screen for visual-signs (which vary by widget) of where focus is. So here's another case where the user is laboring for the UI instead of vice-versa. Mouse-over-for-focus just plain gets more done for less physical effort. For example, to search a list, you could simply move the pointer over the list and start typing. No Control or Alt modifier needed. Click-for-focus cannot match that. Less mental effort, less physical effort. Whew, I could keep going but that's plenty enough isn't it? Why do I go through all this trouble to type this up advocating this position? Because I care, and this position continues to need an advocate. When it comes to basic operations like focus and text-editing, we are connected to Squeak at a lower level. These operational manipulations are __ingrained into our cerebellum__, so changing them from one Squeak version requires cataclysmic biological reprogramming for some of us. Losing "selectionsMayShrink" in 3.9 was a casualty I will miss dearly, and, sadly, a sign (to me) that Squeaks superior UI is slowly eroding for no good reason (i.e., losing it didn't bring newbies to Squeak in droves). Thank goodness still for #mouseOverForKeyboardFocus and I can still set #wordStyleCursorMovement off. I implore for 3.10 to be more conservative about removing these sort of low-level operational details. Both sides can have what mostly what they want via preference settings, so we can all connect and interact with Squeak in the way that is most natural to each individual.. Thank you, Chris

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[OT] ClubSmalltalk meeting in Buenos Aires - 21/12/06 - 19hs
by francisco.j.garau＠jpmorgan.com 19 Dec '06

19 Dec '06

This message is intended for the Smalltalkers living in Buenos Aires City. ClubSmalltalk is organizing a meeting in which Andres Valloud will be presenting the spanish version of his talk "Writing Truly Efficient Smalltalk". If you want to come, please sign up here: http://www.xpdeveloper.net/xpdwiki/Wiki.jsp?page=ClubSmalltalk20061221 or send a message to our mailing list http://groups.google.com/group/clubSmalltalk Thanks (and sorry for the short notice), Francisco This communication is for informational purposes only. It is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument or as an official confirmation of any transaction. All market prices, data and other information are not warranted as to completeness or accuracy and are subject to change without notice. Any comments or statements made herein do not necessarily reflect those of JPMorgan Chase & Co., its subsidiaries and affiliates. This transmission may contain information that is privileged, confidential, legally privileged, and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the information contained herein (including any reliance thereon) is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Although this transmission and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by JPMorgan Chase & Co., its subsidiaries and affiliates, as applicable, for any loss or damage arising in any way from its use. If you received this transmission in error, please immediately contact the sender and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format. Thank you.

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writing image segments directly to disk
by Avi Bryant 19 Dec '06

19 Dec '06

Here's a speed/memory tradeoff that would help me a lot if I was able to choose it: currently, the primitive that builds an image segment requires a pre-allocated WordArray. If you're creating an image segment of a significant portion of the data in the image, this effectively doubles your image size (or more, because it over-allocates). It would be great to have a version of this primitive that used a file instead. I realize that there's a lot of random access of the buffer that goes on, which means that a file-based prim is going to be a *lot* slower than the memory based one, but in some cases I'm willing to pay that price to keep the image size low. If someone is up for writing this prim, I'm happy to compensate them for their time. Cheers, Avi

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[ANN] Magma 1.0r38 on SqueakMap
by Chris Muller 19 Dec '06

19 Dec '06

Magma is now once again installable from SqueakMap. There are three configurations, each a superset of its previous: Magma client (1.57MB) Magma server (2.08MB) Magma tester (3.64MB) This is essentially the same stable version (1.0 with queries) that was announced in November, save one improvement. An important note about installing into in 3.8 or 3.7, you will see the following message from Monticello: "This package depends on the following classes: MethodProperties Pragma You must resolve these dependencies before you will be able to load these definitions: MethodProperties>>maCopyWithDisconnectedPragmas MethodProperties>>maPragmas: Pragma>>maCopyAndDisconnect Select Proceed to continue, or close this window to cancel the operation." This message appears because just one Magma code base exists for Squeak 3.7, 3.8 and 3.9. This message is explaining that methods for classes that exist only in 3.9 will not be loaded. Just select Proceed and Magma will be loaded completely and correctly. - Chris

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Start with a short user story. ( e.g. kbd focus) (from refactoring morphic thread)
by Bill Schwab 19 Dec '06

19 Dec '06

Chris, Not necessarily! Aside from keyboard navigation, the focus might have moved programmatically (I'm not _completely_ opposed to UI innovations<g>). Beyond that, it matters not why the user moved the mouse; the point is that many users do not want the focus to follow it. Sometimes the user moves the mouse of "muscle memory" to get the cursor out of the way of reading what is being typed; other times, the blasted cable presses against the coffee cup and moves the mouse. Punishing a touch-typist for this kind of thing is not a ride up in the market. Bill Chris Muller wrote: > Now, the biggest annoyance about morphic is that I cannot use my > >keyboard properly, e.g. I have to point my mouse to an input box > >before typing. I never understand this. To get initial focus you clicked that window, so why move the mouse away? Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D. University of Florida Department of Anesthesiology PO Box 100254 Gainesville, FL 32610-0254 Email: bills(a)anest4.anest.ufl.edu Tel: (352) 846-1285 FAX: (352) 392-7029

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[Q] Anyone tried MiineStore with recent Squeak(>= 3.8)?
by Sungjin Chun 19 Dec '06

19 Dec '06

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, Though it seems that MinneStore site is not updated for long time, it seems rather easy to use for me. So I tried it with 3.8.1 image but tests are failed. The reason for failures are related to String class clusters such as ByteString, WideString, however I'm not sure on this. Is there anyone who successfully using minnestore oodb with squeak >= 3.8? What kind of patch should be applied? Thanks in advance. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFFg4H7QqspS1+XJHgRAvAyAJ9YOsA0eCRQMiGkzS6xjxIohH/NiQCgtqsa 9SjHj1jRf+uDacmRyHds+84= =st+1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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www.squeakvm.org down ?
by karl 19 Dec '06

19 Dec '06

I can't reach www.squeakvm.org Anybody have any info ? Karl

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