Smalltalk with James Robertson

Bethesda has given us a teaser to tide us over until the release date of Old World Blues for Fallout: New Vegas :

Technorati Tags: fnv, fallout, fallout+new+vegas

I won't be able to make it to ESUG this year - I haveto drive my daughter to college that week. For those of you with fewer timing issues, it's getting close to the end of the early bird rates:

You must register by July 18th to get the early-bird price for ESUG 2011 in Edinburgh: £315 for all 5 days, the social event, and the Camp Smalltalk weekend before if you can make that as well (and the Seaside sprint the weekend after if you are on that too).

Technorati Tags: smalltalk

Data, that is. PC World investigated some used phones at a flea market:

When I got home and charged the phones, I found so much information on both that I could have constructed an intricate portrait of each former owner’s life in the month before the phone left their hands. I had access to bank email, photos of family and friends, the nicknames the owners used for their parents--all for $60 and an afternoon at the flea market.

They also bought phones from various used phone sellers, and the results were interesting. Looks like you need to be very, very careful before you sell your old phone on e-bay...

Technorati Tags: security

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the refactoring browser - a tool you may know from other Smalltalk dialects, and which is also available for 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 look using another browsing choice for VA Smalltalk - the Refactoring Browser. If you are coming to VA Smalltalk from another dialect, this may be your most comfortable initial choice, as the RB in VA is very similar to the RB in VisualWorks, or the browsers in Squeak and Pharo. To get started, open up the Load Features UI:

Scroll down to the Refactoring Browser in the list on the left, move it to the right, and hit Ok:

Now, to compare and contrast, we'll take a look at our CounterApp example in the standard (not Trailblazer) browser, and then flip over to the RB:

Go back to the Tools menu in the launcher, and select the Refactoring Browser:

Now scroll through the list of applications in the left most pane, and select one - we've selected outr CounterApp example here:

What you are looking at is the more traditional four pane Smalltalk browser, but with all of the functionality that the RB brings with it. We'll explore some of that functionality in a future 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, refactoring browser

Welcome to episode 37 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck.

This week Michael and I spoke to Don MacQueen, who has spoken about the JWars project (a large VA Smalltalk application) at many events. We asked him about the project's trajectory, and about his current work at Instantiations.

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, jwars, va smalltalk

Welcome to episode 37 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson, Michael Lucas-Smith, and David Buck.

This week Michael and I spoke to Don MacQueen, who has spoken about the JWars project (a large VA Smalltalk application) at many events. We asked him about the project's trajectory, and about his current work at Instantiations.

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: jwars, smalltalk, va smalltalk

The first DLC for DA2 is coming out, and it looks like you'll get to leave Kirkwall. With luck, you'll get new maps, too:

The announcement tells you to "Leave Kirkwall", and explore a prison constructed by the Grey Wardens. You will have to foil a criminal cartel that's taken a violent interest in the Hawke family lineage. The expansion promises several new locations, Darkspawn enemies, a new class specific weapon and more achievements.

Technorati Tags: da2, dragonage, dlc

Alan Kay will be speaking at HPI on July 21st - Robert Hirschfeld posted the following to the ESUG mailing list:

It is my great pleasure to announce Alan Kay's talk here at HPI.

Title: "Next steps for qualitatively improving programming"

Venue: Lecture Hall 1, Hasso-Plattner-Institut Potsdam, Germany

Date and time: July 21 (Thu) 2011, 16:00-17:00

Additional information:
http://www.vpri.org/html/people/founders.htm
http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/hpi/anfahrt?L=1
http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/news/beitrag/computerpionier-alan-kay-wird-hpi-fellow.html

The talk will also be posted online afterwards, so we all have that to look forward to

You know that a divorce settlement is going to hinge on FitBit data at some point :)

Technorati Tags: fitbit, privacy

Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes a look at Fuel - a new object serializer for Pharo. It's part of the Summertalk program that's sponsored each year by ESUG, and it looks cool. To watch now, click on the image below, or go to the YouTube page

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, fuel, pharo

James Foster explains how to do user specific rendering in Seaside:

Seaside has the built-in ability to use HTTP Authentication to restrict an application to a specific user/password. The method WAAdmin class>>#’register:asApplicationAt:user:password:’ registers the application with WAAuthenticationFilter as a filter and provides a single user and password that must be provided in order to view the initial page. This provides some password security, but does not differentiate among allowed users (e.g., everyone will use the same ‘admin’ user name).

Technorati Tags: seaside

It looks like the major (US) ISP's are going to try something that might actually work, after years of the content owners pushing for really stupid stuff that didn't help:

The agreement puts heavy emphasis on "education," going so far as to recast this behavior as some "right to know" on the part of parents unaware of a child's P2P activity. According to today's announcement materials, the goal is to "educate and stop the alleged content theft in question, not to punish. No ISP wants to lose a customer or see a customer face legal trouble based on a misunderstanding, so the alert system provides every opportunity to set the record straight."

It would be much easier to see "education" focus as a principled stand by content owners if they hadn't spent years suing such end users, securing absurd multi-million dollar judgments in cases that they are still pursuing in court. As it is, the shift looks more like a pragmatic attempt to solve a real problem through less aggressive measures after the failure of scorched earth tactics.

Imagine how much better this would have worked had the RIAA and MPAA gone with this approach right off....

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have recovered the sound from an 1888 recording made by Edison - probably one of the first recordings ever made. You can get the story on how it was found and recovered, and then listen to the audio here.

To put the time in context - in 1888, the Civil War generation ran the country, and Grover Cleveland was in his first term of office as President.

The only thing I can come up with that explains this mini-revival of cassette tapes is a desperate need to find a way to stand out:

The last car to ship with a tape deck was the 2010 Lexus SC 430. Sony stopped making the Walkman last October. This can mean only one thing: Cassettes are about to be cool again. Indeed, upstart labels like Crash Symbols, Volar, and Bathetic are putting out cassette-only releases. Indie rock favorite the Mountain Goats recently came out with a tape of rarities, and established noise-pop bands Joan of Arc and Of Montreal are also putting out their new albums on cassette.

How many people in the core music buying demographic (teens) even have a tape deck? This is an interesting publicity stunt, but I can't see it having legs. I understand that big audiophiles prefer vinyl (for the analog sound), but tapes? Seriously?

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we look at how to execute code on page exit. 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, tutorial

Spotted in Engadget:

Spotify just threw up a US landing spot, inviting eager Americans to jump in line for a table at the party. Meanwhile, we just received confirmation on our own end that things are finalizing for testing here in the States, and we'll be sure to report back just as soon as our credentials clear.

I'm still not sure what this would buy me over Pandora, but we'll see when it launches....

The Pharo project is moving from Hudson to Jenkins - if you care about the details, check it out.

Technorati Tags: pharo, jenkins, builds

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the help system that comes with VA Smalltalk. The only trouble you may have with it is the warning about loading "active content" into your browser; we'll cover that in the tutorial. 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 the help system that comes with VA Smalltalk. It's standard Windows help - we'll go to the help directory and open that up:

Depending on the browser you use, you may get a warning about loading active content. Since this content is local, and comes from a trusted vendor, we'll just ok it:

This opens up to the index page for VA help. From here, you can peruse all of the available topics:

For example - say you wanted to get started with a database application - just dive into that topic:

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, help system

Need LDAP sprinkled into your Seaside app? Charlie Meyer has a solution for you

Technorati Tags: ldap, seaside

Fuel (an object serializer for Pharo) is now at version 1.5 - what's new?

• Initialize instances after materialization implementing #fuelAfterMaterialization
• Ignore transient instance variables overriding #fuelIgnoredInstanceVariableNames
• Limit serialization progress bar to update at most once every 250 milliseconds
• Traits are serialized and materialized as a regular objects
• Removed mappers system cache (Eliot)
• Many new tests
• Benchmarks: compare Fuel against StOMP, SRP, SIXX, Magma, EsAndEm and Fuel with progress bar
• Benchmarks: new samples, scripts, and CSV exporter
• Benchmarks: measure serialization stream size
• Removed some redundant #fuelAccept:
• Several aesthetic changes in protocols, categories and comments
• Now #materialize answers the materialized root
• Removed special cluster for HashedCollection - Now #rehash is sent via #fuelAfterMaterialization
• MethodContext serialization does not serialize temps
• Classes and Traits now serialize its environment (testCreateWithSmalltalkGlobalsEnvironment)
• Fixed serialization of non-octet characters (testCharacter)
• Fixed a bug serializing the system dictionary - FLWellKnownObjectsCluster handles it
• Fixed a bug serializing class variables (testClassVariable)
• Fixed a bug when serializing a collection with size greater than 1^16 with repeated elements inside
• Fixed testTwoCompiledMethodsReferencingSameClassVariable
• Optimization: instanceIndexes are directly created with the exact size (Henrik)

Fuel is part of the ESUG Summertalk project

Technorati Tags: fuel, summertalk

Here's a hot tip: Don't name your boat the Titanic II

Michael has posted some more progress on Xtreams - this time originating from the end user community

Technorati Tags: xtreams, generators

Today's Javascript 4 You. Today we look at setting the initial state of your page with an onload() function. 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, onload, tutorial

We had our fireworks display on Saturday