Squeak-dev July 2008

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136 participants
183 discussions

Learn on Squeak VM
by beepeng ang 11 Aug '08

11 Aug '08

Hi, everyone. I am very new to Squeak. I need to learn on Squeak virtual machine and plugin for my project. I have never taken any courses on virtual machine or compiler before. I hope that somebody can show me where to start with, will it be the Blue book? Or perhaps there are other alternatives. I have read through some webpages in www.squeakvm.org, but I find it hard to understand maybe because I don't have a strong foundation on this. Thank you so much for helping. Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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A website to communicate about Smalltalk companies
by Damien Cassou 10 Aug '08

10 Aug '08

Hi, some websites (http://www.esug.org/Smaltalk/Companies, http://community.ofset.org/index.php/Entreprises_utilisant_Smalltalk) lists Smalltalk customers and companies. It would be interesting to merge these lists and update them. That would help us promote Smalltalk. I don't think esug.org is the right place because it's restricted to Europe. ofset.org is also not the best choice because it's mainly French. Merik Voswinkel proposes to create a new wiki and put a domain for it. It's an interesting idea. What about smalltalk.org? Who owns this domain and who is responsible for maintaining it? On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:58 AM, Merik Voswinkel <macmerik(a)xs4all.com> wrote: > Damien, > > On Jul 31, 2008, at 10:43 AM, Damien Cassou wrote: > >>> There is also a list on the french wiki : >>> http://community.ofset.org/index.php/Entreprises_utilisant_Smalltalk >>> >>> Maybe these lists should be merged and consolidated. >> >> Thanks for the pointers. Once I finish my presentation, I could change >> these wiki pages. > > > I could set up an new wiki for you, and I think Rob Vens could find someone > to keep it updated in the future. > > As a stopgap solution you can use the two wiki's below right away, I'll > transfer them to a proper place on friday and put a domain on them. Tell me > what you need and I'll arrange it. > > http://squeakphone.wiki.xs4all.nl/index.php?title=Main_Page > http://www.macmerik.nl:8080/seaside/pier > > My professional Linkedin groups on Smalltalk will certainly be able to > supply more names, and be interrested in the list as a broadcast. > > Do not forget the www.cmsbox.com or netstyle.ch customers. > > > Merik > > -- Damien Cassou Peter von der Ahé: «I'm beginning to see why Gilad wished us good luck». (http://blogs.sun.com/ahe/entry/override_snafu)

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About String vs Symbols
by stephane ducasse 09 Aug '08

09 Aug '08

Hello I'm reading newspeak spec and I like the idea of immutable strings. Now what does it really bring to us? Then does it mean that we could get rid of symbols immutability does not imply unique identity. Stef

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Smalltalk customers
by Damien Cassou 07 Aug '08

07 Aug '08

Hi, I would like to present Smalltalk to my colleagues because they all think it's an old language of no interest which nobody uses. To prove them they are false, I would like to build a list of companies who are using Smalltalk every day. Can you please give me the names of your companies if they are using Smalltalk? Thank you very much -- Damien Cassou Peter von der Ahé: «I'm beginning to see why Gilad wished us good luck». (http://blogs.sun.com/ahe/entry/override_snafu)

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HydraVM win32 update (was: Re: [squeak-dev] Re: new blog post plus closure bootstrap code)
by Igor Stasenko 04 Aug '08

04 Aug '08

2008/7/23 Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda(a)gmail.com>: > > > On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 12:38 PM, Igor Stasenko <siguctua(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Good news Elliot! To what i see, changes you made are not too hard to >> merge with Hydra changes. :) > > Good. I would be very surprised if I did anything incompatible. I want to > change as little as possible only to enable closures and a context-to-stack > mapping VM. I would doubt that either my Stack VM or a JIT that derives > from it would have significant conflicts with Hydra and that these would be > resolvable quite easily. You are making VMs play together I'm merely > speeding up the execution core. > I done writing a small overview of code generator changes. You can find it there: http://squeakvm.org/~sig/hydravm/codegen.html >> Too bad, i had little time to work with Hydra for last two weeks. >> >> There are little news, except that Hydra able to run Qwaq Forums on >> win32, and it does it quite stable. > > Excellent. The StackVM is nearly able to run forums (it at least starts > up). I'm taking a couple of days away form it to finish some blog posts on > closures. > >> >> Yesterday i started writing a CodeGenerator changes overview, i think >> i'll finish it tomorrow. >> >> I'm also planned to release an update of Hydra sources and VMMaker >> package.. but i postponing release day by day.. because i'm little >> nervous, can't really tell the reason.. >> Maybe because, if these changes, after some evaluation show that VM is >> quite stable, this will mean declaring a Hydra VM entering a Beta >> stage (on win32 platform only for now). :) > > I think you should wait until after ESUG. We should meet at ESUG, show each > other our modifications and then publish a merge. What do you think? > Definitely, we should merge efforts :) Well, your changes is not backwards compatible with current squeak images, while Hydra can run them w/o problems. This is the reason, why i want to release them now - at least in binary form. So people may try run it and report problems found. So here is update. ---- VMMaker and HydraVM packages is now at squeaksource. MCHttpRepository location: 'http://www.squeaksource.com/HydraVM' user: '' password: '' The platform sources are located here: http://squeakvm.org/svn/squeak/branches/HydraVM I also wanted to put binaries to ftp.squeak.org/HydraVM, but forgot the password :) Ken, can you remind me please? Changes in last update: - fixed bug with queues - revised many plugins which can be now built with VM. It now builds with 100% plugins which coming by default with VMMaker package (if i didn't miss anything). -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

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Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Squeak and MySQL?
by Benoit St-Jean 03 Aug '08

03 Aug '08

Good idea. I'd be willing to put some time and effort in such a project. I'm on Windows and can test for DB/2, Oracle, InterBase, MySQL and SQL Server if need be. It would be cool to have a complete coverage of the ODBC API and have a package that is "self-contained" (no dependency on a particular TimeStamp implementation defined elsewhere for instance). We should use/fix whatever is broken/missing in the "base" image. Is this the start of a new project? ;) ----------------- Benoit St-Jean Yahoo! Messenger: bstjean Blog: lamneth.wordpress.com A standpoint is an intellectual horizon of radius zero. (Albert Einstein) ----- Original Message ---- From: Germán Arduino <garduino(a)gmail.com> To: rjriv(a)sbcglobal.net; The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org> Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 6:42:37 PM Subject: Re: [squeak-dev] Re: Squeak and MySQL? We should joint efforts to have an up-to-date and complete ODBC package. I can help with Monticello stuffs.... Let me know. Cheers. 2008/7/30 Rob Rothwell <r.j.rothwell(a)gmail.com>: > I would also recommend ODBCEnh, which lets you use DSN-less connections, and > implements doesNotUnderstand to look for common types of field names in the > collections it returns (so that ARecord firstName can find field names like > "firstName, or "FIRST_NAME," etc...). > The ODBC package is a change set, which, if I recall, loads some global > constants and things which made the TimeStamp class not work in Aida, I > think. Anyway, if you have problems, let me know; I have a version I > patched many months ago which seems to work...although I didn't know enough > at the time to turn it into a Monticello package and wrap ODBCEnh up with > it! > Take care, > Rob > > On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 12:33 PM, Andreas Raab <andreas.raab(a)gmx.de> wrote: >> >> Keith Hodges wrote: >>> >>> Latest avaiable is in http://www.squeaksource.com/MySQL >>> >>> I use it in combination with some classes in Magritte-RDB available from >>> mc.lukas-renggli.ch/magritteaddons >> >> Thanks for the pointers. Unfortunately, it appears from SqueakMap that the >> driver is GPLed and since we sell our enterprise server solution this is a >> no-go. I think I'll go with ODBC. >> >> Cheers, >> - Andreas >> > > > > >

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Immutability, what it is, why
by Janko Mivšek 02 Aug '08

02 Aug '08

Dear Squeakers, A bit explanation of immutability will help you understand what it is good for and why it is good to be introduced in Squeak. 1. immutable object = read only object. That means you can read it but not write/change its state. Where is this good for? 2. Literals should be immutable by default. Like 'this is a literal string'. Most of debate so far were about such immutable objects. 3. But the immutability become really powerful for persistence support. That is, as transparent persistence as possible, without any special commands for storing objects into a database. How can this be achieved with immutability? 4. With a clever trick: object to be saved into a database (persistent object) is declared as immutable. When we try to change it, an exception occurs. In exception handler we temporary declare object as read/write, allow the change then declare object back to immutable. We also put that object into a set of changed or so called 'dirty' objects. All we need to do now is to save them to a database during a commit. 5. That's how the Gemstone persistency is implemented completely transparently on VisualWorks, which supports immutability for a while. 6. Consider how transparent can become Magma with immutability in Squeak! 7. Consider many other uses when you need to detect object change. We can for instance implement logging of changes into a file and reverting in case of image crash, just as we are doing now with the code changes. In any case introduction of immutability opens us many new opportunities, which outnumber the small performance penalty it introduces. Best regards Janko -- Janko Mivšek AIDA/Web Smalltalk Web Application Server http://www.aidaweb.si

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Help: need pangocairo.pc
by K. K. Subramaniam 01 Aug '08

01 Aug '08

Hi, The Etoys vm (3.10-3/squeak) reports the following error on Ubuntu Gutsy when running etoys-dev-3.0 image: >ioFindExternalFunctionIn(primitiveUTF8StringWithIndex, 0x810ccf8): > /usr/local/lib/squeak/3.10-3/RomePlugin: undefined symbol: primitiveUTF8StringWithIndex While compiling vm off olpc trunk on Ubuntu Gutsy, I got an error: >checking for PANGOCAIRO... no >******** disabling RomePlugin I traced the error to a missing pangocairo.pc file in the library libpango1.0-0. Has anyone built the olpc vm on Ubuntu Gutsy or later? What was the pangocairo.pc file used to build the VM? TIA .. Subbu

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Serious bug in 3.10
by askoh 01 Aug '08

01 Aug '08

| block | block := [:i | Transcript cr; show: i]. 1 to: 10 do: [:i | block value: i+1] The above should print ten times. But it only prints the five even numbers. That is a bug isn't it? Aik-Siong Koh -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Serious-bug-in-3.10-tp18764850p18764850.html Sent from the Squeak - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Q: Is it all right for TTCfonts to have non-integer heights?
by Jerome Peace 01 Aug '08

01 Aug '08

[squeak-dev] Q: Is it all right for TTCfonts to have non-integer heights? Hi Yoshiki, Thank you for repling. > >Yoshiki Ohshima yoshiki at vpri.org >Mon Jul 28 17:48:52 UTC 2008 > > >At Fri, 25 Jul 2008 10:17:27 -0700 (PDT), >Jerome Peace wrote: >> >> Q: Is it all right for TTCfonts to have non-integer heights? >> >> Hi all, >> >> Several TTCfonts return float fractions when asked for heights >> (basically any with a point size not divisible by 3). >> You can see this by using the World>appearence>system fonts>demo mode >> and then ...>print default fonts. >> >> Is this a bug? > > In the Squeak world, it is ok if it works^^; I know. But I doesn't quite. TTCFont>>ascent has a code hole that leads to infinite recursion under certain conditions. There are several different versions of TTCFont>>ascent. AFAIK all the ones currently in use including oplc/3.8 have this property. Ralph Johnson patched around this in 3.10. To prevent the certain condition, fallback fonts are limited to strikefonts. IMO this is unsatisfactory and undesirable. The general problem lies in the developers of TTCFonts not being aware of implict assumptions underlying Strikefonts and font sets. Indeed, I've only become aware of them because I am bug tracking. Unfortunately, I start with minimal knowledge of how the font stuff works and interacts with the drawing stuff. I am becoming aware of a need for the knowledge of how everything interacts and works together. My question here comes from an impression from reading the code that some of it assumes heights come in interger pixels. TTCFonts break this assumption. So either the assumption is incorrect and all the down stream code handles the fractional pixel height with grace or it doesn't. In which case I might find another unobvious bug that under the right conditions crashes the system by running it out of memory. So if you could give this matter a little more serious thought and help my quest for understanding with a clue or two? It would be appreciated. Thank you for considering this. > > There isn't a real harm with it. There will be some truncation for >example for advanced width so the rendered result is in theory not >optimal in some cases. > I am concerned here about "height" not width. Do you know where the truncation takes place? Where should I look for it? Yours in curiosity and service, --Jerome Peace also see mantis: A Mother for font and font test problems http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=6570

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