[ANN] Amber Smalltalk 0.9.1 is out!

About 4 moons have passed and Amber - the Smalltalk for the web - has
during that time moved forward quite a lot. Since the 0.9 release back
in september we have made about 250 commits and closed 52 issues of
about 75 reported during these months.

Now with over 43 forks on github and more than 230 followers the
project:

       http://www.amber-lang.net

...is live and kicking!

A lot of cool stuff is being done in those forks and not in the master
repository, like for example the gaming framework called Ludus by
Bernat
Romagosa:

       https://github.com/bromagosa/amber/tree/ludus

...or Ambrhino by Stefan Krecher - Amber running in Rhino:

       https://github.com/StefanKrecher/Ambrhino

So, why would you take a look at Amber?

In our opinion Amber is perfectly positioned for the HTML5 onslaught
and
the explosion of all-things-javascript like for example Nodejs.

Amber plays very well with others and can seamlessly use Javascript
libraries! It's a *real* Smalltalk, the environment is all there
including Workspace, Transcript, Browser,
senders/implementors/references to class, TestRunner, Inspectors, code
editing with syntax coloring and a Debugger. There is no image or
interpreter, all compilation is incremental.

JavaScript is quite a broken language with lots of traps and odd
quirks.
It is the assembler of the Internet and we love it for that, but we
don't want to write applications in it. Smalltalk is immensely cleaner,
both syntactically and semantically with a simple class model and a
lightweight syntax for closures. It is in many ways a perfect match for
the Good Parts of JavaScript.

And having a true live interactive incremental development environment
where you can build your application directly in the browser is
unbeatable...


Below follows a summary of the major changes since release 0.9. We hope
you join us in developing Amber and having fun! Fork at github, join in
#amber-lang on freenode and hop onto the mailing list.

regards, Nicolas & Göran ...and a BIG thanks to everyone that are
involved in the project!
---------------------------------------------

Here's a summary of changes since the 0.9 release:

- 80 new unit tests written
- 52 issues fixed
- All classes in Kernel-Objects, Kernel-Classes and Kernel-Methods has
been documented
- New documentation framework (see
http://amber-lang.net/documentation.html)
- Better class organisations, "Kernel" package split into several
packages
- First class packages have replaced class categories
- Internet Explorer 7+ compatibility
- New Announcement framework ported from Pharo
- New console-based REPL written in Amber using node.js
- Symbol class implemented together with object identity and #==
- New OrderedCollection and Set implementation
- Dictionary can now have any kind of object as keys. String-key
dictionary has been renamed HashedCollection
- New TwitterWall example
- Improved HTML Canvas, now compatible with IE7
- Improved JSObjectProxy for seemless JavaScript objects access from
Amber
- No more jQuery binding. Amber is fully capable of sending messages to
JavaScript objects

About 4 moons have passed and Amber - the Smalltalk for the web - has
during that time moved forward quite a lot. Since the 0.9 release back
in september we have made about 250 commits and closed 52 issues of
about 75 reported during these months.

Now with over 43 forks on github and more than 230 followers the
project:

       http://www.amber-lang.net

...is live and kicking!

A lot of cool stuff is being done in those forks and not in the master
repository, like for example the gaming framework called Ludus by
Bernat
Romagosa:

       https://github.com/bromagosa/amber/tree/ludus

...or Ambrhino by Stefan Krecher - Amber running in Rhino:

       https://github.com/StefanKrecher/Ambrhino

So, why would you take a look at Amber?

In our opinion Amber is perfectly positioned for the HTML5 onslaught
and
the explosion of all-things-javascript like for example Nodejs.

Amber plays very well with others and can seamlessly use Javascript
libraries! It's a *real* Smalltalk, the environment is all there
including Workspace, Transcript, Browser,
senders/implementors/references to class, TestRunner, Inspectors, code
editing with syntax coloring and a Debugger. There is no image or
interpreter, all compilation is incremental.

JavaScript is quite a broken language with lots of traps and odd
quirks.
It is the assembler of the Internet and we love it for that, but we
don't want to write applications in it. Smalltalk is immensely cleaner,
both syntactically and semantically with a simple class model and a
lightweight syntax for closures. It is in many ways a perfect match for
the Good Parts of JavaScript.

And having a true live interactive incremental development environment
where you can build your application directly in the browser is
unbeatable...


Below follows a summary of the major changes since release 0.9. We hope
you join us in developing Amber and having fun! Fork at github, join in
#amber-lang on freenode and hop onto the mailing list.

regards, Nicolas & Göran ...and a BIG thanks to everyone that are
involved in the project!
---------------------------------------------

Here's a summary of changes since the 0.9 release:

- 80 new unit tests written
- 52 issues fixed
- All classes in Kernel-Objects, Kernel-Classes and Kernel-Methods has
been documented
- New documentation framework (see
http://amber-lang.net/documentation.html)
- Better class organisations, "Kernel" package split into several
packages
- First class packages have replaced class categories
- Internet Explorer 7+ compatibility
- New Announcement framework ported from Pharo
- New console-based REPL written in Amber using node.js
- Symbol class implemented together with object identity and #==
- New OrderedCollection and Set implementation
- Dictionary can now have any kind of object as keys. String-key
dictionary has been renamed HashedCollection
- New TwitterWall example
- Improved HTML Canvas, now compatible with IE7
- Improved JSObjectProxy for seemless JavaScript objects access from
Amber
- No more jQuery binding. Amber is fully capable of sending messages to
JavaScript objects

Nice work guys !

Laurent

On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 1:06 AM, Nicolas Petton <[hidden email]> wrote:

About 4 moons have passed and Amber - the Smalltalk for the web - has
during that time moved forward quite a lot. Since the 0.9 release back
in september we have made about 250 commits and closed 52 issues of
about 75 reported during these months.

Now with over 43 forks on github and more than 230 followers the
project:

       http://www.amber-lang.net

...is live and kicking!

A lot of cool stuff is being done in those forks and not in the master
repository, like for example the gaming framework called Ludus by
Bernat
Romagosa:

       https://github.com/bromagosa/amber/tree/ludus

...or Ambrhino by Stefan Krecher - Amber running in Rhino:

       https://github.com/StefanKrecher/Ambrhino

So, why would you take a look at Amber?

In our opinion Amber is perfectly positioned for the HTML5 onslaught
and
the explosion of all-things-javascript like for example Nodejs.

Amber plays very well with others and can seamlessly use Javascript
libraries! It's a *real* Smalltalk, the environment is all there
including Workspace, Transcript, Browser,
senders/implementors/references to class, TestRunner, Inspectors, code
editing with syntax coloring and a Debugger. There is no image or
interpreter, all compilation is incremental.

JavaScript is quite a broken language with lots of traps and odd
quirks.
It is the assembler of the Internet and we love it for that, but we
don't want to write applications in it. Smalltalk is immensely cleaner,
both syntactically and semantically with a simple class model and a
lightweight syntax for closures. It is in many ways a perfect match for
the Good Parts of JavaScript.

And having a true live interactive incremental development environment
where you can build your application directly in the browser is
unbeatable...


Below follows a summary of the major changes since release 0.9. We hope
you join us in developing Amber and having fun! Fork at github, join in
#amber-lang on freenode and hop onto the mailing list.

regards, Nicolas & Göran ...and a BIG thanks to everyone that are
involved in the project!
---------------------------------------------

Here's a summary of changes since the 0.9 release:

- 80 new unit tests written
- 52 issues fixed
- All classes in Kernel-Objects, Kernel-Classes and Kernel-Methods has
been documented
- New documentation framework (see
http://amber-lang.net/documentation.html)
- Better class organisations, "Kernel" package split into several
packages
- First class packages have replaced class categories
- Internet Explorer 7+ compatibility
- New Announcement framework ported from Pharo
- New console-based REPL written in Amber using node.js
- Symbol class implemented together with object identity and #==
- New OrderedCollection and Set implementation
- Dictionary can now have any kind of object as keys. String-key
dictionary has been renamed HashedCollection
- New TwitterWall example
- Improved HTML Canvas, now compatible with IE7
- Improved JSObjectProxy for seemless JavaScript objects access from
Amber
- No more jQuery binding. Amber is fully capable of sending messages to
JavaScript objects

I'm in coder's Heaven for the last two days. Thanks so much for making
it fun again !

On Jan 17, 8:51 am, Amber Milan Eskridge
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> Thank you and keep up the good work!
>
> On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 8:06 AM, laurent laffont
> <[hidden email]>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Nice work guys !
>
> > Laurent
>
> > On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 1:06 AM, Nicolas Petton <[hidden email]>wrote:
>
> >> About 4 moons have passed and Amber - the Smalltalk for the web - has
> >> during that time moved forward quite a lot. Since the 0.9 release back
> >> in september we have made about 250 commits and closed 52 issues of
> >> about 75 reported during these months.
>
> >> Now with over 43 forks on github and more than 230 followers the
> >> project:
>
> >>        http://www.amber-lang.net
>
> >> ...is live and kicking!
>
> >> A lot of cool stuff is being done in those forks and not in the master
> >> repository, like for example the gaming framework called Ludus by
> >> Bernat
> >> Romagosa:
>
> >>        https://github.com/bromagosa/amber/tree/ludus
>
> >> ...or Ambrhino by Stefan Krecher - Amber running in Rhino:
>
> >>        https://github.com/StefanKrecher/Ambrhino
>
> >> So, why would you take a look at Amber?
>
> >> In our opinion Amber is perfectly positioned for the HTML5 onslaught
> >> and
> >> the explosion of all-things-javascript like for example Nodejs.
>
> >> Amber plays very well with others and can seamlessly use Javascript
> >> libraries! It's a *real* Smalltalk, the environment is all there
> >> including Workspace, Transcript, Browser,
> >> senders/implementors/references to class, TestRunner, Inspectors, code
> >> editing with syntax coloring and a Debugger. There is no image or
> >> interpreter, all compilation is incremental.
>
> >> JavaScript is quite a broken language with lots of traps and odd
> >> quirks.
> >> It is the assembler of the Internet and we love it for that, but we
> >> don't want to write applications in it. Smalltalk is immensely cleaner,
> >> both syntactically and semantically with a simple class model and a
> >> lightweight syntax for closures. It is in many ways a perfect match for
> >> the Good Parts of JavaScript.
>
> >> And having a true live interactive incremental development environment
> >> where you can build your application directly in the browser is
> >> unbeatable...
>
> >> Below follows a summary of the major changes since release 0.9. We hope
> >> you join us in developing Amber and having fun! Fork at github, join in
> >> #amber-lang on freenode and hop onto the mailing list.
>
> >> regards, Nicolas & Göran ...and a BIG thanks to everyone that are
> >> involved in the project!
> >> ---------------------------------------------
>
> >> Here's a summary of changes since the 0.9 release:
>
> >> - 80 new unit tests written
> >> - 52 issues fixed
> >> - All classes in Kernel-Objects, Kernel-Classes and Kernel-Methods has
> >> been documented
> >> - New documentation framework (see
> >>http://amber-lang.net/documentation.html)
> >> - Better class organisations, "Kernel" package split into several
> >> packages
> >> - First class packages have replaced class categories
> >> - Internet Explorer 7+ compatibility
> >> - New Announcement framework ported from Pharo
> >> - New console-based REPL written in Amber using node.js
> >> - Symbol class implemented together with object identity and #==
> >> - New OrderedCollection and Set implementation
> >> - Dictionary can now have any kind of object as keys. String-key
> >> dictionary has been renamed HashedCollection
> >> - New TwitterWall example
> >> - Improved HTML Canvas, now compatible with IE7
> >> - Improved JSObjectProxy for seemless JavaScript objects access from
> >> Amber
> >> - No more jQuery binding. Amber is fully capable of sending messages to
> >> JavaScript objects