Bye, bye Jtalk... Hello Amber!

> As some of you may know there is a new Smalltalk in town - and up until
> today it was called Jtalk. After a furious three week development
> period
> after the ESUG 2011 conference (where Jtalk raised some eyebrows) we
> are
> now making a first release humbly numbered 0.9. We are also taking the
> opportunity to pick a slicker name for Jtalk - Amber!
>
> New website is at:
>
>        http://www.amber-lang.net
>
> 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. It is a
> Smalltalk that plays well with others and can seamlessly use Javascript
> libraries.
>
> At the same time Amber feels like 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, but all
> compilation is incremental.
>
> Below follows a summary of the massive changes since ESUG that
> triggered
> us to make a first release.
>
> We hope you join us in developing Amber and having fun! There is
> already
> work being made in using Amber on top of Java using Rhino, using Amber
> for making games and lots more. Fork at github, join in #amber-lang on
> freenode and hop onto the mailing list.
>
> regards, Nicolas & Göran
>
> (and thanks to Laurent, David, Bernat, Stefan, Raimon, Alexandre, Dale,
> Juraj, Ken, Pavel and everyone else that have been involved)
> ---------------------------------------
>
> Language, compiler and runtime
>
> - New 100x faster parser built using PEGjs instead of the old parser
> built using PetitParser.
> - New much faster ChunkParser implementation in handwritten Amber
> instead of using PetitParser.
> - Improved parsing error report with quoted source code plus marker
> pinpointing parsing error.
> - Removed PetitParser since it is no longer needed by Amber itself.
> - Added compiler optimizations in the form of speculative inlining of
> specific messages and control structures.
> - Added support for dynamic Arrays, just like in Squeak/Pharo.
> - Added support for similar dynamic Dictionaries, not seen in other
> Smalltalks.
> - Added & and | as allowed binary selectors and implemented them in
> Boolean.
> - Added a Set implementation.
> - Added basic support for Packages, dependency management coming soon.
>
> ...and various extensions, enhancements and bug fixes to the library
> classes.
>
>
> Development environment
>
> - A working Debugger with integrated inspector, proceed etc.
> - A structure with multiple different Amber environments in different
> directories.
> - A working amberc command line compiler including a Makefile for
> recompiling the whole Amber.
> - Enabled TestRunner in the IDE for running unit tests based on SUnit.
> - Added "File in" button in Workspace to easily paste and filein source
> code in chunk format in the IDE.
> - Added "Rename package" and "Remove package" buttons to browser that
> use the new Package model.
> - Added a standalone webDAV server in Amber so that it is simpler to
> get
> up and running and able to commit code locally.
>
>
> Example code and ports
>
> - Ported ProfStef interactive tutorial, available on Amber homepage
> (www.amber-lang.net/learn.html) but also in examples directory.
> - Included the ESUG presentation as an example also in the examples
> directory.
> - Several new examples running on Node.js and webOS included, all with
> Makefiles.
>
>
> Various other things
>
> - Issue tracker on github now used as primary source, closed a bunch of
> reported issues.
> - Wiki pages on github with information on how to port code from other
> Smalltalks, lists of articles, tutorials, roadmap and more.
>
> --
> Nicolas Petton
> http://www.nicolas-petton.fr
>
>
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