Smalltalk with James Robertson

Via Torsten: TDD with Baby Mock:

Technorati Tags: pharo, tdd

Back in April, I forgot to put a few of the relevant federal forms into the mail for the state of Maryland (I had to mail because TurboTax told me that my forms couldn't be e-filed - go figure). I got a penalty notice a month later, which was not a huge surprise. I called, was told to send the forms in, and did so.

Wait one month, another notice arrives. I call again - this time, I'm told that if I mailed the forms, they would get lost. This was, shall we say, a surprise - I asked whether a check would get lost if I had sent one (that yielded an awkward silence). Fine, fine - what's the right procedure? I'm supposed to fax the documents.

Hmmm - fortunately, I have an ancient (20 years old!) fax/printer sitting in the corner. I get the phone line plugged into it, have the half remembered arguments with it over paper jams, and proceed to fax the 20+ pages. Then I call back, and ask whether they got the fax - "who knows", is the response.

And people wonder why I'm cynical over any plan that involves a bigger role for government....

Technorati Tags: government, taxes

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the settings code in Pharo - specifically, how do you figure out what the code behind a setting is if you need that?. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, pharo, settings

It'll be interesting to see whether this pizza tests as good as a run of the mill Dominos:

Get ready for Let's Pizza, a pizza vending machine that promises to deliver a piping hot pizza pie made from scratch in less than three minutes.

Just to be safe, no one tell the mayor of NYC....

Technorati Tags: food, pizza

Via Torsten:

Now Stefan crosscompiled GNU Smalltalk to Android. A binding to Android APIs is still missing - but it basically runs. The source is on GitHub if you want to help.

Technorati Tags: android

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at the datepicker widget in the JQuery UI widget set. Note that the screencast shows it unstyled; to see the default style, you'll want to include a link to the stock CSS included in the widget set. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.

To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: javascript, jquery, ui, widget

Still interested in submitting something for IWST at ESUG 2012? You now have until June 25:

We would like to inform you that we will extend the deadline for IWST 2012 submission to Monday, June 25th. We have received several requests asking for a delay concerning the submission deadline. Please can you disseminate this information and use the CFP to invite some of your colleagues/students/partners to submit papers. Your support is essential to make IWST 2012 a success.

Get the full details at the ESUG Home page; submit papers at EasyChair.

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, esug

Today's Smalltalk 4 You starts looking into the XML support in VA Smalltalk. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

.

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Today we'll start looking at the XML support in VA Smalltalk - what to load, and how to get started with it. In the Features list, you'll want to load two things:

• XML Support
• XML Examples

As a starting point, let's look at the base XML parser - we're going to read in a large XML file (something produced by BottomFeeder).

To get an XML Document, you just need to execute the following (note that we aren't using validation; if you have a schema, you can provide that and turn validation on):

parser := AbtXMLDOMParser newNonValidatingParser.
parser parseURI: 'v:\feeds.xml'.

The argument can be either a file path or URI. You should see something like this if you inspect that:

That's about it for today - we'll start doing some more involved work with XML over the next few screencasts.

Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, va smalltalk, xml

Arden Thomas, Cincom's Smalltalk product manager, has asked for feedback on a new text editor that's being built for VW:

We are in the process of revamping and modernizing our text editor, which is used in a number of places in the product. What are your wishes/needs/requirements in a text editor? Any api level access you have dreamed about to accomplish some tasks? Any current restrictions that are an obstacle?

If you subscribe to the VW-Dev or VWNC mailing lists, drop them a line there.

Technorati Tags: visualworks

Welcome to episode 82 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week I have a recording from the STIC 2012 conference - Chris Thrgrimsson talking about their use of Cairo in VW:

Chris presented his work on the Cairo Graphics Kit (CGK) for Cincom's VisualWorks. The GCK is a collection of packages that further enhance the CairoGraphics and Pango packages already provided by Cincom. It provides new views, widgets and wrappers that leverage the cairo and Pango bindings. The development effort started out of necessity for more advanced UI graphics while still using familiar VisualWorks UI development tools. The CGK is also a free bundle licensed under LGPL for use in VisualWorks 7.7 and above. Detailed information about the Cairo Graphics Kit can be found at www.mycairographics.com. I'll also explain how the CGK is used within our own products at Lam Research and I'll talk about how we were successful in integrating Cairo into an existing, large scale VisualWorks Smalltalk project without sacrificing the expected quality of our code.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, stic12, cairo

Welcome to episode 82 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week I have a recording from the STIC 2012 conference - Chris Thrgrimsson talking about their use of Cairo in VW:

Chris presented his work on the Cairo Graphics Kit (CGK) for Cincom's VisualWorks. The GCK is a collection of packages that further enhance the CairoGraphics and Pango packages already provided by Cincom. It provides new views, widgets and wrappers that leverage the cairo and Pango bindings. The development effort started out of necessity for more advanced UI graphics while still using familiar VisualWorks UI development tools. The CGK is also a free bundle licensed under LGPL for use in VisualWorks 7.7 and above. Detailed information about the Cairo Graphics Kit can be found at www.mycairographics.com. I'll also explain how the CGK is used within our own products at Lam Research and I'll talk about how we were successful in integrating Cairo into an existing, large scale VisualWorks Smalltalk project without sacrificing the expected quality of our code.

You can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or any other podcatching software) using this feed directly or in iTunes with this one.

To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software. You can also download the podcast in ogg format.

If you like the music we use, please visit Josh Woodward's site. We use the song Troublemaker for our intro/outro music. I'm sure he'd appreciate your support!

If you have feedback, send it to jarober@gmail.com - or visit us on Facebook - you can subscribe in iTunes using this iTunes enabled feed.. If you enjoy the podcast, pass the word - we would love to have more people hear about Smalltalk!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, stic12, cairo

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the standard development process using VA Smalltalk and ENVY. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

.

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Today we'll start looking at SAX driver support in the VA Smalltalk XML codebase. What you'll want to take a look at (after loading the basic XML Support) is the class AbtXmlSaxDefaultHandler. When you create your own sax handler, you'll be subclassing this class:

Take a look at the methods in the category Abt-ContentHandler category - these are the ones you'll be specializing. We'll take a look at a specific example in the next screencast.

Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, va smalltalk, sax, xml

Guillermo Polito has been making some progress on his bootstrapping efforts in Pharo. Lots of details at the link, with more specific ones outlned in these three posts:

• Chapter 1: Preparing the Soil
• Chapter 2: Do not mess with the VM
• Chapter 3: It's Alive!

Technorati Tags: pharo

I've been watching this (the live stream from the MS announcement for Surface). First thoughts:

• The case is nice, but not 10 minutes of steamy love affair nice
• A stylus? Let me check the calendar... nope, not 1999
• Metro. Let me gag. Repeatedly. That has to be the ugliest UI ever, and I'm including the first few versions of Squeak in that comparison....
• No pricing at this time, or launch dates. I take these as bad signs - MS is back to VaportWare (tm)!

I don't think I'll be rushing out to replace my iPad. Having said that, if this comes out relatively soon, it could be the final nail for RIM - Windows Phones and Surface could take the professional space completely away from them.

Technorati Tags: surface, microsoft

Today's Javascript 4 You looks at buttons in JQuery UI. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. Join the Facebook Group to discuss the tutorials. You can view the archives here.

To watch now, click on the image below:

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Technorati Tags: javascript, jquery, widgets

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the standard development process using VA Smalltalk and ENVY. If you have trouble viewing it here in the browser, you can also navigate directly to YouTube. To watch now, click on the image below:

.

If you have trouble viewing that directly, you can click here to download the video directly. If you need the video in a Windows Media format, then download that here.

You can also watch it on YouTube:

Today we'll look at a SAX content handler example - to get started, you'll want to load the XML Support and XML Examples. Once you've done that, you can have a look at class AbtXmlBasicExample class, and method #saxExample. You'll also see that there are other examples - you should probably have a look at all of them. Try executing the example code

AbtXmlBasicSamples saxExample

That will drop the XML file that's used first, which you can see below. It then hooks up the component parts (as explained in the last screencast) to parse the file and get a set of objects back:

To see how that all works, take a look at class JrcOrderContentHandler. This class handles the different XML nodes in the file, and creates the appropriate types of objects as they are encountered. If you look at the customized methods (overrides of the placeholders in the superclass), you can see that it's all done via:

• Creating the proper instance of an object based on the node
• Managing the current "filling" of instance variables via a stack
• Catching the end of the current node to close the current object out and pop it off the stack

You'l also need a class for each kind of object (unless you plan on creating a simple Collection/Dictionary setup, which would be easy enough to do in your handler). Here's one of those classes:

Need more help? There's a screencast for other topics like this which you may want to watch. Questions? Try the "Chat with James" Google gadget over in the sidebar.

Technorati Tags: smalltlk, sax, va smalltalk, xml