Planet Squeak

There is a new mailinglist to discuss the Cuis Smalltalk system.

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at May 16, 2012 06:59 AM

FYI, this weekend I’ll be preparing some documentation for Spoon, and would be happy to converse in-depth about it here and elsewhere online.

by Craig Latta at May 15, 2012 03:19 PM

Will you also try Smalltalk and rethink your views about the world of programming.

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at May 15, 2012 02:20 PM

by board (board@pharo-project.org) at May 15, 2012 06:56 AM

The latest versionof the software found around the world in the One Laptop Per Child computer — Etoys — is now available from the Squeakland website. In Etoys 5 you’ll find new features such as single-stepping a script, attached watchers, a graph paper tool, and ScratchConnect, a way to connect Etoys and Scratch.

by smalltalktelevision at May 14, 2012 12:38 PM

by board (board@pharo-project.org) at May 13, 2012 01:18 PM

Hilaire Fernandes made DrGeo for Android available. DrGeo is built using Pharo Smalltalk.

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at May 09, 2012 08:15 AM

Squeak Oversight Board minutes – 5/07/12

Attending: Colin Putney, Chris Cunnington, Bert Freudenberg, Randal Schwartz

- some ideas were explored for a Squeak event concerning kinds of presentations and intended audience; in addition we discussed who might be a good keynote speaker

- ideas for where we should get a new server were explored, but we’re waiting back to hear from some people, so nothing definitive was decided today

- there is a plan (regardless of the readiness of the new server) to take a week in June and update the squeak.org website to the latest version of Aida

- instead of waiting until next year, some steps will be taken to update the voting procedure. The people who voted this year will automatically be included in a new voting list. The new system will likely be based on the Sugar Labs model with a public list of voters. [1]

- Chris Muller is the new SFC liaison contact at the SOB

[1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Members

by smalltalktelevision at May 08, 2012 03:21 PM

Thats why I like Smalltalk (and Blocks) - powerfull and easy to understand:


[ self doSomething ]
valueWithin: 1 day
onTimeout: [ self doSomethingElse ].

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at May 08, 2012 10:03 AM

Squeakfest 2012 in Uruguay and Argentina is coming up soon: 17 to 23 May in Montevideo and Buenos Aires. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in introductory workshops, develop content for various curricular areas, learn about project development, educational robotics and other topics related to Squeak Etoys and the One Laptop Per Child project.

by smalltalktelevision at May 07, 2012 04:06 PM

You may know JSON format from JavaScript - now Smalltalk has something similar. It is called STON - Smalltalk Object Notation and infos about it can be found here.

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at May 07, 2012 01:09 PM

Squeak Oversight Board minutes – 5/01/12

Attending: Chris Muller, Colin Putney, Levente Uzonyi, Chris Cunnington, Bert Freudenberg, Craig Latta

- the SOB meeting time is being changed tentatively to 1st and 3rd Mondays noon in Los Angeles, so the next meeting is at May 7, 12pm L.A., Calif. time

- Colin is talking to Joyent [1] in Vancouver about hosting. They are a large supporter of node.js

- Colin is compiling Cog for Illumos (a branch of Solaris) [2]

- It was agreed that the a transition from our current server to a new server is required, as the current server hardware cannot run Cog (it’s an old AMD Athlon without SSE2)

- We discussed Squeak’s market position. Ideas around it being a “flexible platform” and how it gives a user “complete control” were emphasized. Squeak has been the point of departure for many innovative projects: RoarVM, Scratch, Croquet, Pharo, Etoys

- Craig’s plans for Spoon in the coming year include porting the Naiad module system to Squeak and other Smalltalks; and, making example modules from existing Squeak code as a demonstration for other people to get started

- The SOB is exploring the idea of having a Squeak event in North American sometime in its tenure this year.

- There are plans to contact the SqueakFest [3] organizers to include a track of programming for other kinds of Squeak projects than the educational

[1] http://www.joyent.com
[2] http://wiki.illumos.org/display/illumos/illumos+Home
[3] http://squeakland.org/squeakfest/about/

by smalltalktelevision at May 02, 2012 12:55 PM

How many calls have you missed since 2009? For Childline, a child-crisis-hotline service in South Africa, that number has been zero. Squeak Oversight Board member Chris Muller developed a GIS module to provide real-time regional call routing for 4Dst’s “Awareness Engine” product. Explore the presentation he made at this year’s Smalltalk Industry Council convention. Squeak Smalltalk — good in a crisis.

by smalltalktelevision at April 30, 2012 02:04 PM

by board (board@pharo-project.org) at April 30, 2012 09:48 AM

Currently I'm working on Faish, a Prolog variant. Eventually I'll need a reasonable user interface, and to package the result for people to install. Therefore, I'm planning to move from Squeak to VisualWorks, as I would be pretty ashamed to expect "end-users" to use Morphic. I could use GtkSqueak (having some experience with that), but that's plan B for now as I'd need to spend time repairing and updating GtkSqueak.

Cincom: you're doing it wrong!

1. You guys make it really hard to get to the software.
2. My first attempt did not work; the email never arrived.
3. WTF - a .iso file!? I just want the Linux VM and whatever image your Smalltalk uses. Plus I'm seriously not going to write it to a CD.

1. I wanted to use ToolBuilder. It's not in the image. That's okay; I'll install it from a version I was working on before.
2. Monticello had a fit. Some classes in the .mcz file declare instance variables that already exist in superclasses. Instead of a recoverable error message, I get some exception and a debugger.
3. I try it again. This time, the image seizes up when loading the package. I press alt-.. The VM quits to the shell (!?).
4. Eventually I manage to get it loaded by various magical incantations. I then open some other window and I get an emergency evaluator (obviously something I did broke Morphic, which is standard behaviour).

1. You should always be able to load a package, even if it is broken.
2. Loading a package should not affect the usability of the rest of your image.
3. The UI should never freeze up. Never, unless the hardware has failed.

by gulik (noreply@blogger.com) at April 28, 2012 07:35 AM

Physical Etoys 2.0 has been released with lots of new features:

1. First of all, it’s based on Etoys 5.0 so it incorporates all the
bug-fixes and new features from the Etoys release.
2. It focuses on the two main hardware platforms: Arduino and
Lego Mindstorms Nxt.
3. An Argentinian version of Arduino is now supported called DuinoBot.

More information available at http://tecnodacta.com.ar/gira/projects/physical-etoys/.

by smalltalktelevision at April 25, 2012 05:00 PM

The leadership team for 20 April 2012 to – 20 April 2013 (approximately) has been announced after the regular voting period. The order reflects the ranking from the election using default Condorcet completion rules (Beatpath/Schulze/CSSD). As usual, the rules actually give the same top 7 choices in the same order. The is year’s Squeak Oversight Board is composed of:

1. Bert Freudenberg
2. Craig Latta
3. Colin Putney
4. Chris Muller
5. Randal Schwartz
6. Levente Uzonyi
7. Chris Cunnington

by smalltalktelevision at April 25, 2012 04:56 PM

Cuis 4.0 has been released. This is a big release for Cuis, as it has been ten months since the last version. Lots of new features are available including a StyledTextEditor by Bernhard Pieber. All the details are available at the Cuis website at http://www.jvuletich.org/Cuis/CuisReleaseNotes.html.

by smalltalktelevision at April 25, 2012 04:49 PM

Oliver created a PDF Framework for Pharo called "Artefact". Nice to have a new alternative.

In the past I used my LibHaru wrapper for Pharo - but that one requires a native library. Christians work generating PDF directly in Smalltalk is only available for VW and not yet ported to Pharo.

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at April 25, 2012 10:16 AM

by board (board@pharo-project.org) at April 24, 2012 10:39 AM

Squeak running on BeagleBone (an embedded ARM V7 platform). Read more!

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at April 23, 2012 06:32 PM

Just stumbled over this presentation from Eric Clayberg with an introduction to Dart for Smalltalkers. You can also watch the video here. As you may know Dart is an attempt from Google to provide a better language than JavaScript for structured web apps. Its interesting and in my spare time I follow new Dart development by looking at dartlang.org or Dart news on Google+.

One interesting thing I noticed is that Eric's presentation is dated March 2012. Nothing special for you. But at least something that made me personally think. Exactly 12 years ago in March 2000 we both attended the first CampSmalltalk in San Diego where a bunch of Smalltalkers gathered to make the world a better place and have a great time. It was my first visit to the states and yes - we all had a great time.

At the Camp Eric had a few copies of the original Smalltalk issue of the BYTE magazine and I got the last one he had left. I was so happy about this historical trophy - it still has a special place in my library!
Eric is meanwhile working for Google as Engineering Manager for the new Dart Editor at Google. One of his slides in the Dart presentation is:

"Let us know if Dart is your new 2nd favorite language :)"

I have to admin I'm not sure what my 2nd favorite language is. There are many nice languages out there:

• Is it JavaScript since it is widely present and IMHO the dynamic languages with the best adoption
• Is it Dart since its new and better structured than JavaScript?
• Is it Groovy which is a nice scripting language for the JVM with Java, Lisp and Smalltalk roots and Smalltalk syntax on the wish list.
• Is it Amber since it allows me to run Smalltalk on JavaScript
• Is it Java since I (have to) use it in daily work and is the most wide spread
• Is it SQL since (relational) data often survives code/programs?
• Is it C since stupid TIOBE ranking says it has now overtaken Java.

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at April 23, 2012 06:01 PM

Igor is working on an SVG importer for the Pharo Athens framework. He made some progress as this screenshot proves:

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at April 23, 2012 04:04 PM

Working with Pharo Smalltalk on Mac? Then have a look here for a nice launcher.

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at April 23, 2012 04:01 PM

Pharo 1.4 is released - so the community starts Pharo 2.0 development. The webpage has the details.

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at April 23, 2012 03:56 PM

by board (board@pharo-project.org) at April 23, 2012 03:22 PM

Juan released Cuis 4.0

by Torsten (noreply@blogger.com) at April 23, 2012 02:39 PM

by board (board@pharo-project.org) at April 23, 2012 02:20 PM

by board (board@pharo-project.org) at April 23, 2012 02:15 PM

I am very happy to announce that the Styled Text Editor for the brand new Cuis 4.0 is now available on GitHub [1]. The Styled Text Editor was first presented by me at last year’s ESUG in Edinburgh [2]. Thanks to ESUG the presentation was recorded [3].

The Styled Text Editor is a framework for rich text editing using styles as known from popular word processors like Apple Pages or Microsoft Word. It features paragraph and character styles, allowing easy text formatting using styles only. It is intended for applications where users need to work with good looking rich text in a simple and fast way.

Rich text commonly refers to text with formatting information like different fonts, sizes, alignments, and emphasis. To make editing as simple as possible instead of individual formatting information end users apply styles to parts of the text. Editing is made fast by keyboard shortcuts for text navigation, selection, and styles selection. Where possible the feel of widely used rich text editors is supported.

It includes many features like
- numbered and bulleted list paragraph styles
- support for images
- multiple level undo and redo
- text completion using various glossaries including a dictionary of English with about 166.000 words
- RTF clipboard (on OS X VMs with the ClipboardExtendedPlugin)

The Styled Text Editor is developed in Cuis with the plan to eventually port it to Squeak and Pharo. The development of the Styled Text Editor inspired many changes to Cuis itself, and It is the first package to use the brand new DVCS based development process for external packages for Cuis 4.0.

The idea and funding was provided by me, Bernhard Pieber and my company Software Generation. The implementation was done by Juan Vuletich, the mastermind behind Cuis. Thanks Juan for the close cooperation. It was and still is great fun to work with you.

We are looking forward to feedback from you. Fork it on GitHub [1], create issues and send us pull requests.

Cheers,
Bernhard Pieber

[1] https://github.com/bpieber/Cuis-StyledTextEditor
[2] http://www.esug.org/wiki/pier/Conferences/2011/Schedule-And-Talks/StyledTextEditor
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUoVbvwspi8&list=PL813665D04A2E4C0A&index=7&feature=plpp_video

by Bernhard Pieber at April 21, 2012 09:31 PM