Smalltalk with James Robertson

Jtalk (Smalltalk on Javascript) now has support for DNU.

Technorati Tags: javascript, jtalk

Bob Nemec runs the Smalltalk STUG in Toronto, Canada, and has an interesting post up:

I've been involved with the Toronto Smalltalk User Group for 20 years now, the past dozen or so as the primary organizer. Lately we've had a few people show up that were new to Smalltalk and wanted to learn more. We talk to them about the simple syntax, show them Pharo and Seaside, tell them about the other dialects, and try whatever we can to get them enthused.

He goes on to talk about the things he likes about Smalltalk; go read the whole thing.

Technorati Tags: toronto

Pharo by Example will soon be available in French.

Technorati Tags: pharo, book

Spotted in Torsten's Blog:

The OpenQwaq project is based on the commercial software that Teleplace has been delivering to the market over the past four years. It is a highly-secure, enterprise-class virtual collaboration platform that has been used by large commercial enterprises and federal agencies. The OpenQwaq project enables organizations - large and small, profit and not-for-profit - to implement virtual workspaces for their specific needs.

Licensed under GPL2, so you may need to look into whether you can make use of it in your context.

Technorati Tags: qwaq, teleplace

My brain hurts.

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we look at using JQuery selectors to select an element, and use prepend and append to modify it. 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, tutorial

Sean DeNegris has been doing some cool stuff with Smalltalk and Objective-C:

I’ve been playing with an Objective-C Bridge in Squeak and Pharo. Now I can do cool Cocoa things in-image! For example, sometimes I need a Mac app’s bundle identifier. I previously used a Ruby script.

Technorati Tags: mac, objective c

Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes an overview look at the workspace tool in VA Smalltalk. If you prefer a written walkthrough to video, then skip down to it. 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:

One of the most commonly used tools in any Smalltalk implementation is the workspace - it's where you do ad-hoc testing and exploratory coding. VA Smalltalk is no different - th eonly thing you have to know is that the Workspace is opened via File>>New in the Launcher, not via a menu item labeled "Workspace:

Once that's open, you can do exactly what you would expect - start typing Smalltalk code and executing it. There's full support for workspace variables, so you don't need to create temporary declarations and line your executions up. Here's the new workspace:

Now you can try typing in some Smalltalk code and executing it:

As you would expect, that gets you an inspector. You don't need to highlight the variable in question; you can just put the cursor down after it. You can also highlight any expression, of course.

The toolbar contains a lot of additional functionality, including access to senders/implementors; simply highlight a message send, and use those. As shown in the screencast, each toolbar item has tooltip help - just walk across the workspace and explore for yourself.

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, tutorial, workspace

When I gave my talk at Smalltalk Solutions 2011, I was asked a question about the Facebook interface I created while I was at Cincom - what license was that code under. Since I wrote it while I was employed at Cincom, I couldn't answer the question, so I deferred it to Cincom (some of their staff were in the presentation, and said that they would "get back to me").

Well, it's May now, and Smalltalk Solutions was nearly two months ago. I'm still waiting for an answer :)

Technorati Tags: facebook

I missed the whole bleeding edge of the announcement thing last night - I was busy playing a video game. However, as I look around this morning, in the aftermath of the tracking down and killing of Bin Laden, there's been an interesting technical wrinkle: Twitter seem to have been where the news broke.

If cable news is where the news used to get announced, social media, with Twitter in the lead, is where it gets broken now.

Another interesting tech aspect to all this - Danny Sullivan notes the difference in how Google worked, now and in the aftermath of 9/11.

Technorati Tags: search

Welcome to episode 27 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week's podcast was recorded at Smalltalk Solutions 2011 - it's Michael Lucas-Smith and Martin Kobetic talking about Xtreams:.

Xtreams is a generalized stream/iterator framework providing simple, unified API for reading from different kinds of sources and writing into different kinds of destinations (Collections, Sockets, Files, Pipes, etc). Streams themselves can be sources or destinations as well. This allows to stack streams on top of each other. At the bottom of such stack is some kind of non-stream (e.g. a collection), we will call it a terminal. Directly above that is a specialized stream providing a streaming facade over the terminal. The rest of the streams in the stack we'll call transforms. Their primary purpose is to perform some kind of transformation on the elements that are passing through. Application code interacts with the top stream of the stack the same way it would with any other stream (or stream stack) producing/consuming the same elements. The goal of the framework is to provide consistent behavior between different stacks so that the application can treat them the same way regardless of what exactly is the ultimate source or destination. For example if the application code analyzes binary data, it should be able to treat the source stream the same way if it is a simple stream over a ByteArray or if it is a stack that provides contents of a specific binary part of a mulitpart, gziped, chunked HTTP response from a socket. Xtreams is an attempt to achieve this goal in a scalable and efficient manner.

If you would prefer to watch the video, scroll down to the embed. The talk was over 90 minutes long, so I've split the audio podcast in half - part two will be out next week..

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!

Xtreams, by Michael Lucas-Smith and Martin Kobetic from Smalltalk Industry Council on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, xtreams, sts11

Welcome to episode 27 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck. This week's podcast was recorded at Smalltalk Solutions 2011 - it's Michael Lucas-Smith and Martin Kobetic talking about Xtreams:.

Xtreams is a generalized stream/iterator framework providing simple, unified API for reading from different kinds of sources and writing into different kinds of destinations (Collections, Sockets, Files, Pipes, etc). Streams themselves can be sources or destinations as well. This allows to stack streams on top of each other. At the bottom of such stack is some kind of non-stream (e.g. a collection), we will call it a terminal. Directly above that is a specialized stream providing a streaming facade over the terminal. The rest of the streams in the stack we'll call transforms. Their primary purpose is to perform some kind of transformation on the elements that are passing through. Application code interacts with the top stream of the stack the same way it would with any other stream (or stream stack) producing/consuming the same elements. The goal of the framework is to provide consistent behavior between different stacks so that the application can treat them the same way regardless of what exactly is the ultimate source or destination. For example if the application code analyzes binary data, it should be able to treat the source stream the same way if it is a simple stream over a ByteArray or if it is a stack that provides contents of a specific binary part of a mulitpart, gziped, chunked HTTP response from a socket. Xtreams is an attempt to achieve this goal in a scalable and efficient manner.

If you would prefer to watch the video, scroll down to the embed. The talk was over 90 minutes long, so I've split the audio podcast in half - part two will be out next week..

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!

Xtreams, by Michael Lucas-Smith and Martin Kobetic from Smalltalk Industry Council on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, sts11, xtreams

Fringe is one of the few shows that keeps holding my interest. Last night's penultimate (for the season) episode ended with a really curious thing:

• Peter stepped into the machine that has dominated this season
• Next thing we see, he's older, and there seems to be street fighting going on in NYC

So we aren't really sure where he ended up - the show's "home" reality in the future, the "Walternate" reality in the future, or perhaps a universe we haven't seen yet. All we know for sure is that Peter is older, and that the people where he landed know him as a long time member of "Fringe Division". That hints at it being the Walternate reality, but it could be the home reality, and they could have created a "Fringe Division" between now and when he landed.

I guess we'll find out next week.

Technorati Tags: fringe

Ok, this is just weird:

Cupcake Vineyards sells 14 wines but also vodkas with “creamy cupcake undertones.”

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at changing Squeak Themes. 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, squeak, themes, tutorial

Spotted in Planet Squeak

The 8th Annual Squeakfest will be held from May, 26 - May, 28 2011 at Universidad Católica in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Technorati Tags: squeak

So long as you start from the right version of Pharo (follow the link for details), there's now an easy to load configuration for Magma 1.2:

I'm glad to announce a new version of ConfigurationOfMagma with support for Magma 1.2. This configuration has been tested on:

• PharoCore 1.1.x
• PharoCore 1.2.x

Technorati Tags: magma, pharo

STIC has found a steady voice for Smalltalk advocacy - Georg Heeg. He's just been renamed executive director of STIC for the fifth year:

After a unanimous vote by the Smalltalk Industry Council board members, Georg Heeg will continue on as the Executive Director of STIC.

Technorati Tags: stic

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we look at using JQuery selectors to select and replace an entire HTML component on a page. 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, tutorial

It turns out that you don't need to visit Italy or Greece to see the fading remnants of former imperial glory - you can go to the Balkans and see a much more modern set of such relics - rotting Soviet era monuments - while the monuments are in what used to be Yugoslavia, and they were put up by Tito, they definitely have that "Soviet architecture" look/feel to them.  Looking at the photos makes me wonder - in 100 years, how many people who live in that area will have any idea what these monuments meant to the people who put them up?

Spotted in The Hitchhiker's Guide to Smalltalk:

Tobias Pape announced SqueakSource3 Beta.1 called "Easter Fire" - a port of SqueakSource to Seaside 3 and Magritte 2. SqueakSource is a monticello code repository server which hosts your Smalltalk projects.

Technorati Tags: seaside, squeak

Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes alook at modifying the default tool fonts in VA Smalltalk. If you prefer a written walkthrough to video, then skip down to it. 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 take a look at changing the fonts used in VA Smalltalk tools, including the browser. Don't like the default font you're looking at? It's easy to change. Pull down the File menu in the launcher and select Set Browser Font

You should see the font picker tool pop up:

Experiment with the fonts, using the example text in the tool as a guide. Once you've found something you like, hit the Ok button, and the system will update:

That's all there is to it!

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

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, va smalltalk, fonts

Based on what I read, this update means that the next round of Fallout: New Vegas is on the way soon:

Hotel internet, meh :)

Technorati Tags: fnv, fallout new vegas

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we look at using JQuery selectors to modify the height and width of a div on a page. 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, tutorial