rexmere.com » Smalltalk

Smalltalk for Everyone

Keith Fieldhouse — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 12:54:31 +0000

My latest article, "Smalltalk for Everyone" is up on O'Reilly's OnLAMP site. With this I article, I'm hoping that someone who is initially approaching Smalltalk will get their bearings on the language and the environment in a way that helps them navigate the vast array of information about Smalltalk that's available.

The Whisker Browser

Keith Fieldhouse — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 22:27:30 +0000

One of things it seems that people have some trouble getting used to when getting into Smalltalk development is the use of the browser (leave aside for the moment getting used image based development in general). I've seen a number of comments about the difficulty of seeing only one method at a time and not being able to scroll around an entire class.For myself, I actually prefer browser based development (I learned C++ programming writing MacApp applications and using MacBrowse). I find that my style is improved by the focusing ability of the browser's method editor.That said, the best of both worlds, in my opinion is the Whisker browser. Essentially what the Whisker browser does is create a dynamic stack of all of the methods you've selected in the method editing pane. It's as if Emacs split the window and automatically scrolled to the next method you've expressed an interest in.It's this behavior I miss most when I leave a Smalltalk image to go work in, for example, Eclipse. Naturally enough, someone could write a plugin to Eclipse to emulate the behavior. But until then...

Technorati Tags: Smalltalk, WhiskerBrowser, Squeak, Eclipse

Seaside Development

Keith Fieldhouse — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 16:25:55 +0000

I'm working on a couple of personal projects using Seaside and I'm looking into using Seaside's impressive script.aculo.us support. Here are a couple of things I found out while digging through the Seaside mailing list:

The easiest way to get a fairly recent version of Seaside and it's script.aculo.us support is to load Pier from SqueakMap.
There's a test AJAX based version of WACounter example called SUCounterTest. I sent #registerAsApplication: to that component and while it appeared properly in my runnging version of Seaside, it generated JavaScript errors when I tried to use it. It's also necessary to configure the app and add the SUScriptLibrary to it.

Pier, BTW, is one very nifty looking app/framework: A nicely designed CMS/Wiki that can, among other things, seamlessly integrate with custom Seaside components.

Technorati Tags: Smalltalk, Squeak, Seaside, Pier

Looking into Smalltalk (again)

Keith Fieldhouse — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 19:32:40 +0000

Periodically throughout my career, Iâ€™ve resolved to learn Smalltalk. I first encountered the Blue Book in the technical library during a co-op at IBM in Rochester MN. My first encounter with a Smalltalk environment was on a DEC MicroVax in the mid-80â€™s when I worked there.More recently Iâ€™ve looked at Squeak. Squeakâ€™s interesting in that itâ€™s a fairly direct descendent of the original Smalltalk. In fact a recent discussion on the mailing list suggested that some of the object instances in the current image were probably first â€œnewâ€™dâ€ back in the 80s. Squeak has a rather complicated history and both suffers and benefits from the rather different uses to which it is put.The trouble with Squeak, for me anyway, is that since itâ€™s so many different things to so many different people it can be a little distracting when youâ€™re just trying to find an entrance. Iâ€™ve a feeling that itâ€™ll be a little easier to get â€œintoâ€ Squeak once I can bring a more complete understanding of a more traditional Smalltalkâ€”with that I think the experimental and exploratory aspects of Squeak will be much more approachable.So lately Iâ€™ve been playing with Cincomâ€™s Smalltalk. Their non-commercial release is free (as in beer), unlimited, and uncrippled and serves as a somewhat more straightforward environment to work with, at least for me. In any event theyâ€™ve got a rich set of documentation thatâ€™s focused on building the kind of apps Iâ€™m used to.While Iâ€™m on the subject of learning Smalltalk, itâ€™s worth pointing out Stephane Ducasseâ€™s Free Smalltalk Books. Professor Ducasse has done the extraordinary work of tracking down the rights holders to a fairly complete library of Smalltalk books and gotten permission to make PDFs of those books freely available on the Internet. With those and the Cincom Visual Works product, the budding Smalltalk student is well supplied with the need to invest only time.