Squeak-dev June 2021

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25 participants
145 discussions

Resources for writing a to-spec Smalltalk VM
by ArooBaito 08 Jun '21

08 Jun '21

Hello! Recently I've been reading about a lot of the cool projects people have done, such as writing VMs to run the old Smalltalk images like Smalltalk 78 and Smalltalk 80, and I was looking to do something similar myself. Specifically I'm really impressed with the Caffeine project as well as Vanessa's SqueakJS that was used as a base, and I wanted to replicate SqueakJS on a much smaller scale for learning purposes. I'm aiming just to re-create Vanessa's 0.1 version of the project that ran the stripped down "mini.image". I'm pretty familiar with writing VMs/bytecode interpreters having written a couple before, such as one on top of the Godot game engine and a compiler in Pharo that compiles to the bytecode for it, but I was hoping to find more Smalltalk-specific resources. So far I've collected the Goldberg/Robinson "Smalltalk-80: The Language and its Implementation", the ANSI Smalltalk spec, and Vanessa's git commits for the month she wrote version 0.1. My twin brother is writing a Javascript VM for a subset of Common Lisp in the same fashion, and he's got a couple more "hand-hold-y" books on the subject. That'd be nice to have, but I don't think anything like that exists for Smalltalk, and I don't really need everything handed to me anyway I suppose. Are there any other resources that you guys would recommend? Thanks in advance! -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Squeak-Dev-f45488.html

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origin of MCVersionName (was: The Inbox: Morphic-ct.1586.mcz)
by Chris Muller 07 Jun '21

07 Jun '21

Hi Marcel, > ... MCVersionName?! A domain-specific subclass of String? Well, I consider this design rather unfortunate. In such a case, on might be better of to favor composition over inheritance. That's an anti-pattern. Please do not do that in your projects. :-) ... I suspect an optimization for a database ... not sure. Chris? I introduced MCVersionName in 2011 as part of the work that unified the MCRepository hierarchy. At that time, external callers had become completely dependent on the only-used subclass, MCFileBasedRepository. So the MCVersionName design was partly for maintaining forward-compatibility for older versions within the MC legacy, but also because it's the soundest and simplest design. The importance of capturing explicit structure in "names" that have them (e.g., filenames, version names) is underrated. MC should have harvested the de facto structure into its code in the first place, but even then, before the legacy, I don't think composition would've been the optimal choice. The requirement calls for a pure scalar value that can be serialized to and from a human-readable filename, but with API access to its structure which the MCTools needed to get off the ground (out of the ditch). There are a lot of names. Composition would essentially require an unnecessarily heavy "ValueHolder" that would either need to be serialized or dynamically created all the time, disrupting the effieciency needed out of the (pre-Spur) tools of that time. Maybe some would argue that a bunch of extension methods on String is better, but I see domain-specific subclasses as merely a rarity, and not an anti-pattern. Best, Chris

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Scroll-wheel via RFB?
by Chris Muller 07 Jun '21

07 Jun '21

Does anyone know how to make RFB responsive to the scroll wheel? This is essential to be able to develop in a remote headless image. Thanks. - Chris

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The Trunk: Tools-eem.1057.mcz
by commits＠source.squeak.org 07 Jun '21

07 Jun '21

Eliot Miranda uploaded a new version of Tools to project The Trunk: http://source.squeak.org/trunk/Tools-eem.1057.mcz ==================== Summary ==================== Name: Tools-eem.1057 Author: eem Time: 5 June 2021, 4:22:06.053958 pm UUID: 2840d28b-00c4-484c-999a-9ec5db85b28c Ancestors: Tools-mt.1056 Restrict the width of each line in the 'all temp vars' selection of a context inspector (bottom right pane in the debugger) so as to keep 'all temp vars' useful for stepping even when one of the variables is e.g. an Array. =============== Diff against Tools-mt.1056 =============== Item was added: + ----- Method: Context>>tempsAndValuesContractedTo: (in category '*Tools-debugger access') ----- + tempsAndValuesContractedTo: width + "Return a string of the temporary variables and their current values" + ^self debuggerMap tempsAndValuesForContext: self contractTo: width! Item was changed: ----- Method: ContextVariablesInspector>>fieldAllTempVars (in category 'fields') ----- fieldAllTempVars ^ (self newFieldForType: #all key: #allTempVars) name: self allTempVarsTranslated; emphasizeName; + valueGetter: [:object | object tempsAndValuesContractedTo: 64]; printValueAsIs; - valueGetter: [:object | object tempsAndValues]; printValueAsIs; yourself! Item was added: + ----- Method: DebuggerMethodMap>>tempsAndValuesForContext:contractTo: (in category 'accessing') ----- + tempsAndValuesForContext: aContext contractTo: width + "Return a string of the temporary variabls and their current values" + | aStream tempStream | + aStream := WriteStream on: (String new: 100). + tempStream := WriteStream on: (String new: width). + (self tempNamesForContext: aContext) doWithIndex: + [:title :index | + aStream nextPutAll: title; nextPut: $:; space; tab. + tempStream reset. + aContext print: (self namedTempAt: index in: aContext) on: tempStream. + aStream nextPutAll: (tempStream contents contractTo: width). + aStream cr]. + ^aStream contents!

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Balloon3D?
by David Duke 03 Jun '21

03 Jun '21

Following links from the Baloon3d page on squeak.org: http://map.squeak.org/package/178bd01c-f698-41ab-9c73-d9278c65c241/default there are/were versions for (1-1.0.3 <http://map.squeak.org/package/178bd01c-f698-41ab-9c73-d9278c65c241/autovers…> , 2-1.0.4 <http://map.squeak.org/package/178bd01c-f698-41ab-9c73-d9278c65c241/autovers…> ) --however both links end on pages with broken links to sars Baloon3d home also has a dead link to a 'Balloon3D' removal package. Qs: is there a copy of the original Baloon3D packages out there somewhere that might be used to build a new package, or is it necessary/desirable to start again? - any papers or design info that capture key decisions? I'm aware that 3D on Squeak was in a way supeceded by Croquet/Cobalt However that has a rather different use-case. - I'm not too bothered by h/w acceleration. - an elegant/customisable renderer is of more interest so happy to have more of it in Smalltalk provided speed is tolerable thanks, David Duke

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