Squeak-dev September 2008

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120 participants
118 discussions

Lies, damn lies and bench... oh wait (was Re: [squeak-dev] Interesting news re Dolphin ST)
by Jason Johnson 28 Sep '08

28 Sep '08

On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Stéphane Rollandin <lecteur(a)zogotounga.net> wrote: >> Keep in mind that while programming languages >> have been largely "commoditized" the best implementations of many >> languages still cost money. E.g. you want the best C compiler? It's >> not GCC. Buy the Intel compiler and watch your code run twice as >> fast. > > wrong, according to the people there (from google "icc vs gcc", first > results page): > http://blog.alphagemini.org/2008/03/icc-vs-gcc-43.html > http://www.osnews.com/comments/19462 > > business is business, quality is quality, saying business => quality is an > ideological statement that needs yet to be proven. IMHO :) > > Stef Um...... Did you actually read the links you posted? In the first one, the ICC bar (program run time) is *less then* half the size of the gcc one and the blogger mentions that GCC has a long way to go at the end of the article! Look, I'm as glad that there is free software out there for me to use and learn from as the next guy (and I even contribute with a "libre"-free license). But there is absolutely nothing wrong with people who sell software. They make a strategic choice. Companies like RedHat choose to use a software product as a loss leader to drum up dollars for their support infrastructure. Places like Cinicom chose to forgo the potentially risky loss leader strategy. If someone thinks one of these strategies is some kind of "guiding light" and the other is morally bankrupt then that person is, in the best case, incredibly naive.

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Interesting news re Dolphin ST
by Chris Kassopulo 28 Sep '08

28 Sep '08

http://www.lesser-software.com/en/content/products/lswvst/lswvst.htm

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Squeak and Netbooks
by Markus Fritsche 27 Sep '08

27 Sep '08

Hello, I'm using squeak on a netbook with a resolution of 1024x600. When I open browser windows or the debugger, the windows are "to small" on the vertical scale. Where do I change the behaviour of newly created windows?

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Position available
by Bèrto ëd Sèra 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

Hi! I'm looking for someone with good Squeak AND peer2peer experience for a paid Open Source project. Preferably somebody residing this side (east) of the Shengen's Wall :) In short what we need is a cross-platform demon that will act as a network traffic manager among the nodes of a distributed database system, many nodes of which may be disconnected from the network for even long periods (and be used in insulation during that time). The demon shall: 1) check whether the network is available 2) find a fresh node with a good bandwidth in the network topology 3) retrieve updates and deliver locally produced updates The database instance itself is currently a MySQL instance, capable of accepting and delivering objectes in XML format. All that is managed by triggers and stored procedures (given the huge amounts we are going to manage we would not risk storing objects in squeak, at the moment). The DB part is already running. Obviously there is much more to it, but I will rather discuss it with a potential candidate than spam the list. Bèrto

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adding a method thru code
by kemal asad-syed 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

I am trying to add a method to a class using code let's say if i want to add to the Myclass class the following method: SelfGeneratedmethode: ^'self generated methode on fri26 sept 2008'. ". I think with smalltalk it should be possible but i am stuck Any help is welcome. I did Thanks. Kemal

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Specifying with a TestCase
by nicolas cellier 26 Sep '08

26 Sep '08

I want to relate here a discussion taking place at http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=6347 Thanks to Norbert Hartl for his collaboration and time devoted to it. The subject is how to write a system specification TestCase. The example taken from the bug report is to clearly express this rule: "For every pair (o1,o2) of equal objects (o1=o2), of different identity (o1~~o2), registering an action for each object of the pair at finalization, shall trigger both actions upon finalization." I put here a new attempt with self documenting code: finalizationProbe := Set new. o1 := 'hello' copy. o2 := 'hello' copy. forAnyTwoEqualObjects := [o1 = o2]. ofDifferentIdentity := [o1 ~~ o2]. registeringAnActionAtFinalizationForEachObject := [ o1 toFinalizeSend: #add: to: finalizationProbe with: 'first hello finalized'. o2 toFinalizeSend: #add: to: finalizationProbe with: 'second hello finalized']. thenForcingFinalizationOfObjects := [ o1 := o2 := nil. Smalltalk garbageCollect]. implyBothRegisteredActionsAreExecuted := [finalizationProbe size = 2]. self assert: forAnyTwoEqualObjects; assert: ofDifferentIdentity; should: [ registeringAnActionAtFinalizationForEachObject value. thenForcingFinalizationOfObjects value. implyBothRegisteredActionsAreExecuted value]. Preamble longer than pure English, and the #value are a bit parasitic... And why using leading assertions? They are not the goal of the test... Well, the TestCase don't prove the implication by itself. It just tells whether verified or not for some objects. Assertions are there to clearly states that the rule is not meant to be casually true for some objects, but shall apply to any objects verifying the pre-condition. They are the left member of the implication we want to verify. They are also self-protecting the TestCase (if ever the two objects chosen become identical or not equal after a refactoring). I think they have their place here. Trusting the comments does work as well and leads to a shorter code: "For every pair of equal objects of different identity," o1 := 'hello' copy. o2 := 'hello' copy. "when both are registering an action at finalization," finalizationProbe := Set new. o1 toFinalizeSend: #add: to: finalizationProbe with: 'first hello finalized'. o2 toFinalizeSend: #add: to: finalizationProbe with: 'second hello finalized'. self assert: finalizationProbe size = 0. "upon finalization..." o1 := o2 := nil. Smalltalk garbageCollect "...both actions shall be triggered" self assert: finalizationProbe size = 2. Or see excellent variation from Norbert with a pair. Small is beautiful. But notions of equal objects (o1 = o2) and different identity (o1 ~~ o2) are very much implicit here. Good for readability, but is it a clear rationale for using IdentityDictionary? Sure, the whole discussion is overkill! Regarding productivity, including time to discuss how to write tests, rules shall better not change too fast! Reserved to a stable Kernel... Or a Smalltalk academy rewriting the Kernel every 100 years or so. I wonder if we can specify a whole Smalltalk Kernel like this by the way? (If we cannot specify a method, then throw it away!). I wish this example serve as a mirror to reflect our own practices. Do we really write TestCase with specifications in mind? Can they serve as a rationale for an implementation? Which readers are the TestCase addressed to? Not sure i can understand every TestCase intention in the image... Shouldn't I? Nicolas

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Re: Etoys Tiles (Bert Freudenberg)
by kemal asad-syed 24 Sep '08

24 Sep '08

the issue I have with adding code to the "general" class player , is for maintenance to package of my Special Purpose Morph, I need to add a dependency to my modifications on the player .maybe if my Morph or its packaging can dynamically add the needed methods to the player that could work for me . which bring me a second problem now .How can I add with code a method to a class .lets say i want to add the following code to the player class. Plyrmethod "wrapper need on the player to implement a method for My specialized Morph" | | costume MyMorphmethod . I am also looking for a way to walk thru the list of the methods of a class . Thanks. Kemal

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Nameserver squeaksource.com
by Norbert Hartl 23 Sep '08

23 Sep '08

This is for the admin-c of squeaksource.com. While checking my own stuff I accidentally queried squeaksource.com and saw that www.squeaksource.com is a CNAME to squeaksource.com. That entry should be an A record as well. CNAME is for other purposes and in such a configuration gives no benefit but can introduce problems. Norbert

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Advice from Plugin gurus
by Gerardo Richarte 23 Sep '08

23 Sep '08

Hi all, I'm working on a plugin (for SqueakNOS), and I have a primitive for which I had coded a first version, and I wanted to hear comments from people with deeper Squeak VM and plugin knowledge. I think it's ugly, but I'm more worried on whether it's dangerous or not. some context: There's a native function I need to call (I called it 'aPrintf' in the code below) with a specific calling convention: It takes only one argument: an array the first entry in the array is apointer to a C string the other elements are determined by the first element. What I want is to provide a generic interface to this aPrintf. The code below will walk the array, converting every element in the array to either an integer (integerValueOf) or a direct pointer (firstIndexableField). And I want to be able to read the results left in the array. I understand that I won't be able to read non-integer elements from the array after coming back from this primitive, but that's fine. I plan to keep a copy of all non-integer elements in Smalltalk variables, including strings and other buffers. What I'd like to know is what experts think of this... like, will it break anything, like the garbage collector? is there any other simple way of doing this? The primitive is: primitiveaPrintf: anArray | answer length element | self primitive: 'primitiveOFWCallout' parameters: #(Array). length := interpreterProxy slotSizeOf: anArray cPtrAsOop. answer := 0. "convert everything to native format" 0 to: length-1 do: [:i | element := anArray at: i. (interpreterProxy isIntegerObject: element) ifTrue: [anArray at: i put: (interpreterProxy integerValueOf: element)] ifFalse: [anArray at: i put: (interpreterProxy firstIndexableField: element)] ]. self cCode: 'printf(anArray)'. "convert everything to integers. oops will be lost, but that's fine. The client should mantain a reference" 0 to: length-1 do: [:i | element := anArray at: i. anArray at: i put: (interpreterProxy positive32BitIntegerFor: element) ]. answer = 0 ifTrue: [^ self] ifFalse: [interpreterProxy primitiveFail]. thanks a lot! richie

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Making morphs scriptable
by Robert Hawley 22 Sep '08

22 Sep '08

There is an eToys scriptable DiceMorph and an eToys scriptable CalculatorMorph on SqueakMap. I'd welcome comments or bug reports. The calculator can be driven entirely from scripts, which makes it quite fun and potentially interesting for schools. The DiceMorph is a reasonably simple example of how to make a morph scriptable. I am surprised there aren't more eToys scriptable morphic objects available. Is there a coherent repository that I have yet to discover?

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