Smalltalk with James Robertson

Pharo continues to march forward.

Technorati Tags: pharo

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the allocation profiler in VisualWorks (the same tool is available for ObjectStudio). 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, visualworks, profiling

Welcome to episode 74 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week we have an interview with James Foster of VMWare. We spoke about Cloud Foundry, and James' work getting Gemstone to be an avilable option there. You can learn more about how to get started with that on James' blog. This is part 1 of 2 - part 2 is coming 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!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, gemstone, cloud foundry

Welcome to episode 74 of Independent Misinterpretations - a Smalltalk and dynamic language oriented podcast with James Robertson and David Buck.

This week we have an interview with James Foster of VMWare. We spoke about Cloud Foundry, and James' work getting Gemstone to be an avilable option there. You can learn more about how to get started with that on James' blog. This is part 1 of 2 - part 2 is coming 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!

Technorati Tags: smalltalk, cloud foundry, gemstone

The video for Sam Adams keynote on parallelism and OO is now available on the STIC site.

Technorati Tags: stic12

The Dart presentation (from Eric Clayberg) at STIC 2012 is now online - you can watch it on the STIC site.

Technorati Tags: stic12

Spotted in Planet Squeak

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

Technorati Tags: cuis, esug

Here's how stupid copyright battles have gotten:

"YouTube must take measures to prevent violations in future," said GEMA's lawyer Kerstin Baecker. "The court has clearly rejected the argument that YouTube as a host is not responsible for users' content."

That sounds reasonable until you sit back and consider reality: how can any company possibly install filters that are aware of all copyrighted material - especially given the fact that new material is being created all the time, and the backlog of extant material is so large as to be effectively infinite. It's simply not possible to do what is being asked here.

If this kind of thing holds up, then no site that accepts user generated content - Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, blog servers (etc. etc) can safely operate. Ultimately, this makes it very clear as to what the content industry wants to see happen: they want the net reduced back to a broadcast only thing, akin to TV and radio.

I was giving this more thought while I flew home earlier this evening - the statements from BioWare indicate that they have "plenty" of room for more stories, set before the events of Mass Effect 3:

In the newly released The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3 app, executive producer Casey Hudson says that the events witnessed in Mass Effect 3 is as far as he wishes to go.

While not yet sure what the franchise will tackle next, “whatever we do would likely happen before or during the events of Mass Effect 3, not after,” he says.

Here's why I think that's wrong:

• The First Contact War? Completely meaningless. We know how things end (badly) a few decades later, so we simply don't care. At all.
• The Rachni wars, or the Krogan Rebellions? The lore tells us how those end, definitively. Again, from a story perspective? None of the choices players would make matter, at all

And so on for any other prequel idea. By hosing down the future, they've hosed down the entire setting. This is why I believe they'll end up retconning it - they'll have no other choice. Now, it looks like the bozo brigade (Hudson) is still convinced that "they did the right thing", so they'll end up retconning things later (maybe much later), at a point when they can look maximally stupid.

Why is this inevitable? With all possible stories in that setting dead, it'll finally occur to someone at EA that they have a serious business (i.e., huge loss of possible future sales) problem on their hands. At that point, the powers that be will treat the ME3 ending the same way that script writers treated Highlander 2 - as an unfortunate incident that they'd like us all to forget (so that we'll buy tickets to the next thing in line). In the meantime, they just get to look stupid.

Technorati Tags: mass effect, stupidity

I just ran across a demo of an Amber app:

Technorati Tags: amber

Today's Smalltalk 4 You takes a look at some of the ways that VA Assist Pro helps out with the Composition Editor. 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:

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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 where the widgets that you use in the Parts tool are picked and placed, and how VA Assist Pro makes that task a bit easier. To start with, examine the left hand side of the screen. The toolbars on the left have widgets: the leftmost is categories. Select one, and you get widgets in that "Set":

Quite often, you'll want some of the more commonly used parts - and that's where VA Assist Pro comes in. Open that up from the "Options" menu:

If you switch to the "Parts" tab, you'll see some of the more commonly used widgets. This often makes it easier to build UIs, as they will mostly be made up of stock parts:

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, parts

Go get the new release and check out the update news at the Pharo site.

Technorati Tags: pharo

Today's Javascript 4 You digs into the event object in JQuery some more. 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

If this patent doesn't convince you that software patents are a bad idea, nothing will:

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today published patent 8,161,411 related to a "graphical user interface for browsing, searching, and presenting media items." Apple filed for the patent back in 2004, when the online retail venue was still known as the iTunes Music Store. The patent appears to be quite broad, but focuses solely on the graphical user interface, and not the way in which people might buy songs on the platform or its general functionality. That said, the patent abstract says that the user interface is "suitable for previewing or purchasing media items in an on-line manner."

Does the US PTO screen specifically for idiots?

Technorati Tags: stupidity

Today's Smalltalk 4 You digs into the Composition Editor in VA Smalltalk again. It's easy to add enough connections to make things a bit confusing - fortunately, you can filter them in various ways. 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 filtering the connections view in the composition editor. While our simple example has a small number of connections, it will serve to demonstrate how you can filter out what you do and don't want to see. First, pull down the "Connections" menu:

By default, you'll be seeing all connections. Try selecting "Hide all Connections":

Now we are looking at a canvas with just our parts on it. At this point, we can return to the same menu and start turning connections selectively on - for instance, just the events:

Or just the attribute connections:

By doing this, we can examine our connections in detail and not get lost in the full complexity. You can also tell what's going on at a glance - note that event connectors are green, while attribute connectors are blue.

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, parts

Today's Javascript 4 You continues to look at events in JQuery focusing on the event's target. 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

James Foster has updated the stuff he presented at the STIC conference last month:

I have consolidated and updated my changes to Cloud Foundry to accomodate GemStone/S 64 Bit and have the changes on github. You can use that code rather than the recent series of posts that are now a bit outdated. I will be making additional updates as I add multi-machine capabilities to reflect some of the things learned in preparing for last month’s STIC presentation. Stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: github, gemstone, cloudfoundry

Never mind the legal hassles Apple is having in Australia over the 4 G thing - the larger issue is that 4G networks around the world are not converging on a standard:

In its grievance, the ACCC has contended that labeling the tablet "iPad Wi-Fi + 4G" in Australia is misleading since the device's flavor of 4G doesn't work in the country. Australia does offer 4G service through its Telstra carrier. But that service operates under an 1800MHz frequency band, according to ZDNet Australia, while the iPad requires 700MHz or 2100MHz frequencies for 4G. Hence, the two are incompatible, leaving Australian 4G iPad buyers stuck at 3G.

There was some hope that going to 4G would "fix" the international standards problem, but apparently not...

Technorati Tags: iphone, 4g

Today's Smalltalk 4 You looks at the Time profiler in VisualWorks. The same tool works in ObjectStudio, even though that's not being shown here. 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, visualworks, profiling