Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Edgar J. De Cleene
Blake puso en su mail :

>
> Solamente en espanol?
No, several members are from other countries.
And several are not beginners at all and understand English

Cheers



       

       
               
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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Cees De Groot
In reply to this post by Marcus Denker
On 1/16/06, Marcus Denker <[hidden email]> wrote:
> First problem: People who want to discover Squeak won't *believe*
> that a book is not needed. Don't even try.

Well... I'm not sure. A thorough tutorial (which we could make
interactive like no-one else) would say more than a thousand books.
And there are books, so if we need to point people to the bookshelf,
it is big enough. At most, I'd make it a thin 'getting started' book.
And maybe a thin 'getting deeper' book. Like <50 pages each, tops.

Anyway, the last proposal I wrote for Squeak in a Nutshell was
rejected by O'Reillly. Maybe time to try it again, call it Seaside in
a Nutshell, that seems to register better on the radar ;-).

> It should talk about Design, Patterns, good style, good ideas (e.g.
> testing), stuff like that.

That's why I pointed out the books I pointed out. They deal exactly
with that sort of stuff. The really important stuff - knowledge that
will easily transport from Squeak to Squeak version, and even across
most Smalltalks.

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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Yanni Chiu
In reply to this post by joshscholar
[hidden email] wrote:
> I downloaded all of the books available and bought a copy of  purple book. I
> don't think any of the books has reference documentation for each class, let
> alone for each method or global.  I'll look into getting a copy of the
> standard.

Just google for "ANSI Smalltalk" and the first link is a pdf
of the draft standard, which IIUC is very similar to the final.

Some prefer reading docs. Some prefer exploring the live system.
Both are needed at different times. How you approach a new
environment is just a personal preference.

--
Yanni Chiu


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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Yanni Chiu
In reply to this post by Edgar J. De Cleene
Lic. Edgar J. De Cleene wrote:
> Blake puso en su mail :
>>Solamente en espanol?
>
> No, several members are from other countries.
> And several are not beginners at all and understand English

A long time ago, I wanted to download something mentioned
in this list. However, the group software required that I join
the SqueakRos list. The message volume was low, until recently,
so I never bothered to unsubscribe - even though I can only
get a dim idea of what's being said (i.e. there's a lot of
commonality across English, French, Spanish).

It would be good if you could post an occasional summary
here, of what's going on in SqueakRos. Or, maybe submit
something to "The Weekly Squeak".

BTW, I tried SqueakLight3.8.1 but it seems that it does not
have (out of the box) the ability to reach SqueakMap. Also,
the naming (i.e. 3.8.1) may cause confusion if there is a
Squeak 3.8.1 release.

--
Yanni Chiu


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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Squeak List
In reply to this post by Rich-18
It's not Squeak, but I have found it helpful:
 
 
Ken

Rich <[hidden email]> wrote:
So that I don't have to keep posting queries to this list like the one
I just posted, I was wondering if anybody could recommend a good,
thorough Squeak/Smalltalk language reference. So far searching online
I've found alot of "The 5 minute intro to Smalltalk" type stuff, but
as these intros becomes less helpful as I try to do more interesting
stuff (after all, you can only add 2 numbers or filter a list so many
times in the Workspace before the "coolness" wears off ;-). Thanks
alot.

-Rich



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Re[2]: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Lynn-2
In reply to this post by Gary Fisher-3
Hello Gary and All, for me documentation is paramount.  By looking at how many Smalltalk programmers there are and how many "newbies" there seem to be there is a large barrier to entry that I think many can't or don't want to see.  It's documentation, how to's, cook books, best practices all in book form - electronic or paper. Class comments are very important but they are not even close to a substitute.  Up to date writings are mandatory for wider adoption and participation.  All the talk about learning the class library, how to program in Smalltalk, how to create GUI's in Morphic by reading Class comments is nuts.  That's not a best practices approach and by just looking around it is easy to see it isn't working.

If we want the benefits of wider participation in the Squeak world then we need to write and keep what has been written up to date.  Lynn

Monday, January 16, 2006, 4:22:29 AM, you wrote:

GF> Rich,

GF> Others have offered far better than two cent's worth; all I've got is one
GF> shiny penny.  As has been pointed out, Squeak and Smalltalk are dynamic
GF> systems which change both with development and with use, so a generic book
GF> is bound to be at least somewhat inaccurate.  My suggestion, therefore, is
GF> to look into a book which defines or even includes the precise version of
GF> Squeak (or other Smalltalk) upon which it is based.  This will, by the
GF> nature of the beast, leave you with a more or less outdated version of the
GF> language, but it shouldn't be outdated by much and can probably be updated
GF> (as can you) fairly easily.

GF> The most current of these, as far as I know, is Stef's "Squeak: Learn
GF> Programming with Robots," ISBN 1590594916.  This book takes the reader by
GF> the hand, assuming nothing, and leads on to a pretty fair overview of both
GF> Squeak / Smalltalk and of programming in general.  A huge advantage of this
GF> book is the author's active participation on this list.

GF> Two more excellent choices are Mark Guzdial's "Squeak: Object-Oriented
GF> Design with Multimedia Applications" (ISBN 0130280283) and his later
GF> "Squeak: Open Personal Computing and Multimedia" (ISBN 0130280917).  Both of
GF> these are based on older versions of Squeak (which they include) and deal
GF> especially, as you might guess, with Squeak's particular strengths in
GF> multimedia, but both are quite useful.  Finally, "Squeak: A Quick Trip to
GF> ObjectLand" (ISBN 0201731142) by Gene Korienek et al, teaches Smalltalk in a
GF> conversational manner which some love and some hate, using Squeak (included)
GF> as its foundation.

GF> None of these are "references" per se, which as others have pointed out is a
GF> tough thing to do, but any of them can bring the user to the point where the
GF> self-referencing features of Squeak / Smalltalk can be understood.

GF> I hope that helps.

GF> Gary


GF> ----- Original Message -----
GF> From: "Rich" <[hidden email]>
GF> To: <[hidden email]>
GF> Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 9:23 PM
GF> Subject: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference


GF> So that I don't have to keep posting queries to this list like the one
GF> I just posted, I was wondering if anybody could recommend a good,
GF> thorough Squeak/Smalltalk language reference.  So far searching online
GF> I've found alot of "The 5 minute intro to Smalltalk" type stuff, but
GF> as these intros becomes less helpful as I try to do more interesting
GF> stuff (after all, you can only add 2 numbers or filter a list so many
GF> times in the Workspace before the "coolness" wears off ;-).  Thanks
GF> alot.

GF> -Rich



GF> ---
GF> avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
GF> Virus Database (VPS): 0603-0, 01/15/2006
GF> Tested on: 1/16/06 6:22:35 AM
GF> avast! is copyright (c) 2000-2004 ALWIL Software.
GF> http://www.avast.com







--
Best regards,
 Lynn                            mailto:[hidden email]


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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Edgar J. De Cleene
In reply to this post by Yanni Chiu
Yanni Chiu puso en su mail :

> A long time ago, I wanted to download something mentioned
> in this list. However, the group software required that I join
> the SqueakRos list. The message volume was low, until recently,
> so I never bothered to unsubscribe - even though I can only
> get a dim idea of what's being said (i.e. there's a lot of
> commonality across English, French, Spanish).

Well, are few, lazy, and talk about not only Squeak in Rosarino (what Spain
people say is not Spanish)  :=)

But welcomed English speaking people.
>
> It would be good if you could post an occasional summary
> here, of what's going on in SqueakRos. Or, maybe submit
> something to "The Weekly Squeak".
>
> BTW, I tried SqueakLight3.8.1 but it seems that it does not
> have (out of the box) the ability to reach SqueakMap. Also,
> the naming (i.e. 3.8.1) may cause confusion if there is a
> Squeak 3.8.1 release.
Yes, I have many plans and unfinished things.
I training a girl to take the Coordinators role.
I do not promise English report as regular basis, but we see if one each two
months is possible.
If you have the ftp address, all change there.
The SqueakLight current is 3.7.5, the 3.8.1 was only a trial, sorry.

I do a clear page about how all masters before me help, the actual affairs
and future plan.
What I could say today is.

The all swiki and blog what we use for day work is a SqueakLight
supercharged and of course not so light (but still half what ready to run
images delivered by Seaside people or SmallSwiki2 as example)

Today, 3.7 part reflex the 3.7 origin, but could load 3.8 or 3.9 code.
Use the same SqueakV3.sources what regular Squeak (older SqueakLights no,
and I think was one mistake)
Have the same Network and same Monticello and friends of 3.9 alpha.
IRC inside.
Play mp3 by drag and drop
Read html and iCab files by drag and drop.
Its the nicknamed "CatBag.image"  when you and others find me in Squeak
channel.

I polishing what I call "emporwements", image segments what  have the
minimal code if loaded lets you have some funtionality.

Today, by loading one of this VMMakerEtAl.2.esqz of only 68 k, and then the
recent .cs sended by John Mackintosh , I could watch QuickTime movies in OS
X separate windows.
Or doing

terminal
"Applescript terminal"
self doIt: '
tell application "Terminal"
do script  "cd ~/SqueakDevelop
    grep -l ''Morph'' *.st "
end tell'

And have all Unix at hand.

I have MorphicWrappers, SqueakAmp, StarBrowser, emporwements.
The reason by do not have a SMLoader is at this point some could not load or
need a couple of days me researching why not and what is the minimal code SL
needs

Spoon is a superior model, but I hope all my work could end in a clear map
of how going from Spoon (the minimal) to SqueakLight (the usable one
project, no eToys) to Squeak X.y full + all SM what you dream.


I put the  SqueakLight.3.7.5,zip and all  what I made in my ftp.
But don't cry if something not work !!!

Be patient :=)

Edgar




       

       
               
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Re: Re[2]: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

joshscholar
In reply to this post by Lynn-2
I agree that there's no substitute for documentation written by humans for
humans.  It's good that smalltalk code is easier to read than other code,
but even the best code only gives you local information (unless you read
every line in the damn system, inspect every varible, trace every routine) -
you need overview information too.  And that needs to be organized and
complete.  "Read the code" is a cop out that ignores that fact.

Josh Scholar

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lynn Hales" <[hidden email]>
To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
<[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 10:25 AM
Subject: Re[2]: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference


> Hello Gary and All, for me documentation is paramount.  By looking at how
many Smalltalk programmers there are and how many "newbies" there seem to be
there is a large barrier to entry that I think many can't or don't want to
see.  It's documentation, how to's, cook books, best practices all in book
form - electronic or paper. Class comments are very important but they are
not even close to a substitute.  Up to date writings are mandatory for wider
adoption and participation.  All the talk about learning the class library,
how to program in Smalltalk, how to create GUI's in Morphic by reading Class
comments is nuts.  That's not a best practices approach and by just looking
around it is easy to see it isn't working.
>
> If we want the benefits of wider participation in the Squeak world then we
need to write and keep what has been written up to date.  Lynn
>
> Monday, January 16, 2006, 4:22:29 AM, you wrote:


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Squeak kinda starts up - disaster recovery issue [Hobbyist]

Squeak List
Hello all,
 
I was happily loading audio samples into Squeak... a few problems, a lot of looking at the sound classes.... but overall, being pleased that I was able to get the samples in and get them to play back as I wanted.
 
Then, as sometimes happens when I do something incorrectly, (and in this case I don't recall exactly what I did: probably wrote some ugly workspace code to try playing back differently or something of that nature) Squeak slows down. By that, I mean that dragging windows, typing anything, etc., goes very slowly. This has happened other times and I am sure it is because of my own bad code. Usually, I do a manual garbage collection and just wait a bit: usually the problem just goes away within a minute. No debuggers or anything like that open or appear when this happens. And then everything is back to normal (well seems to be anyway).
 
So, what happened was that I saved when Squeak was in that "slowed down" mode. I didn't try re-opening the image until the next day. What happens is this: I have the folder that holds all of my Squeak stuff maximized on the desktop (Win XP). I drop the questionable image onto the VM and then the frame/outline of the Squeak window shows up, but I still see the contents of the background maximized folder. I minimize both windows. When I maximize the Squeak window, the frame is there, but inside of it is nothing but a charming black color. Task manager shows Squeak using high 90% of cpu. This is 3.9 alpha - update 6704, as are the other images I use (other images work fine). The mouse takes the usual shape when in the window, but clicking anything does nothing. Clicking the X to close the window brings up the usual confirmation if I want to save before quitting (I think I have always hit NO). The window closes and that is that.
 
Since I did have a decent amount of  "working/good" code in that image, I searched high and low for how to recover from disaster. I imagined that that mysterious .changes file would let me rollback whatever I had done to cause this problem. It didn't quite work that way, but I was able to use find the "Recent changes in file" from the file list to get most of what I wanted. Kinda tedious, but I did recover almost everything - enough to not write this until a week after this happened. At this point it is more of a curiosity if there is any way to actually get that image to "open all the way". Also, this has definitely changed my feeling about the certainty I used to feel when I saved what I was working on... Now I save a lot more often, and never save if Squeak is in one of my induced "slow down" modes.
 
Otherwise, Squeak Rules:)
 
Ken


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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Blake-5
In reply to this post by Edgar J. De Cleene
On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 03:30:37 -0800, Lic. Edgar J. De Cleene  
<[hidden email]> wrote:

>> Solamente en espanol?
> No, several members are from other countries.
> And several are not beginners at all and understand English

I have to say, having visited the site, I'm not quite sure what SqueakRos  
is.

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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Milan Zimmermann-2
In reply to this post by timrowledge
On January 16, 2006 00:51, tim Rowledge wrote:
<<snip>>
>
> What we can have, should have and pretty much don't have is decent
> friggin' comments as to what classes are intended for, how they are
> implemented and their limitations, along with comments in the code to
> give some decent level of meaning. Comments in the system can be (but
> usually aren't) kept up to date. Better yet we could develop tools to
> replace the current browsers that make writing code more like writing
> documentation that has the implementation included as it goes

+10^9

>, what
> my friend Dan Lanovaz refers to as a software book.  But then we'd
> get complaints from the sort of plonkers that claim 'oh, my code is
> so clearly written that it needs no comments'. Gits.
>
> tim
> --
> tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
> Strange OpCodes: JUM: Jeer at User's Mistake


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Re: Squeak kinda starts up - disaster recovery issue [Hobbyist]

tblanchard
In reply to this post by Squeak List
In my experience, slowdowns occur when you have runaway processing - infinite loops are kind of bad, infinite recursion is really bad.  Before long this will set the garbage collector and allocator to thrashing and this is probably part of your slowdown.  The unresponsive UI occurs when you execute such code as a doit (doit's are performed in the UI thread and so the Ui pauses until your action is completed).

Command or alt-period (depending on whether you are windows or mac) will halt the current task and pop up some debuggers.  The first debugger to open is the one you're interested in - I usually end up with 4 or more and have to keep closing them to get to the pertinent one.

For your sick image, try cmd or alt period immediately and see if you can get debuggers to pop up.

Another thing worth doing is to open a process viewer and look for runaway processes.  I've had such things when doing seaside apps that I needed to hunt down to restore performance.

Good luck.


On Jan 16, 2006, at 7:14 PM, Squeak List wrote:

Hello all,
 
I was happily loading audio samples into Squeak... a few problems, a lot of looking at the sound classes.... but overall, being pleased that I was able to get the samples in and get them to play back as I wanted.
 
Then, as sometimes happens when I do something incorrectly, (and in this case I don't recall exactly what I did: probably wrote some ugly workspace code to try playing back differently or something of that nature) Squeak slows down. By that, I mean that dragging windows, typing anything, etc., goes very slowly. This has happened other times and I am sure it is because of my own bad code. Usually, I do a manual garbage collection and just wait a bit: usually the problem just goes away within a minute. No debuggers or anything like that open or appear when this happens. And then everything is back to normal (well seems to be anyway).
 
So, what happened w! as that I saved when Squeak was in that "slowed down" mode. I didn't try re-opening the image until the next day. What happens is this: I have the folder that holds all of my Squeak stuff maximized on the desktop (Win XP). I drop the questionable image onto the VM and then the frame/outline of the Squeak window shows up, but I still see the contents of the background maximized folder. I minimize both windows. When I maximize the Squeak window, the frame is there, but inside of it is nothing but a charming black color. Task manager shows Squeak using high 90% of cpu. This is 3.9 alpha - update 6704, as are the other images I use (other images work fine). The mouse takes the usual shape when in the window, but clicking anything does nothing. Clicking the X to close the window brings up the usual confirmation if I want to save before quitting (I think I have always hit NO). The window closes and that is that.
 
Since I did have a decent amount of  "working/good" code in that image, I searched high and low for how to recover from disaster. I imagined that that mysterious .changes file would let me rollback whatever I had done to cause this problem. It didn't quite work that way, but I was able to use find the "Recent changes in file" from the file list to get most of what I wanted. Kinda tedious, but I did recover almost everything - enough to not write this until a week after this happened. At this point it is more of a curiosity if there is any way to actually get that image to "open all the way". Also, this has definitely changed my feeling about the certainty I used to feel when I saved what I was working on... Now I save a lot more often, and never save if Squeak is in one of my induced "slow down" modes.
 
Otherwise, Squeak Rules:)
 
Ken


Yahoo! Photos – Showcase holiday pictures in hardcover
Photo Books. You design it and we’ll bind it!




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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Julian Fitzell
In reply to this post by joshscholar
I won't say documentation isn't needed, but I think you are missing the
point.  It isn't that smalltalk code is easy to read (though some may
argue it is), it's that smalltalk code is easier to *navigate*. Senders,
implementers, references; these things make it easier than in any other
system I've used to find your way around quickly.  Not to mention the
method finder.  If more of our code had good tests, a simple senders
check would give you a very good idea of how to use the method and of
whether it is public/private/etc.  A few choice class comments to give
slightly broader information and we'd be in good shape.

Overview information is still great to have as well but we're talking
pretty broad here and I'd say at the level that could easily be handled
on a wiki.

I won't deny that many newcomers crave more printed documentation and
part of that is because they're new and need more documentation, but
another part of it is that they're new and can't picture a world where
you don't need the documentation (I can't even fathom working with, say,
MFC classes without printed docs).  So "read the code" is not just a cop
out; it's partly based on the experience of seeing a lot of new people
come onto the list with the same concerns and most of them catching on
pretty quick and becoming as productive in Squeak as the rest of us.

You have to remember that resources are limited and most of us would
rather spend a few minutes pointing newcomers to the tools (teaching
them how to fish, if you will) rather than spending a year writing a
book that will be incomplete and out of date a year down the road.

Like I said, I won't say documentation is a bad idea; I'd love to do it
myself, in theory.  But there just doesn't seem to be anyone, currently,
for whom having the largest possible number of squeak users is a big
enough priority.  And until there is, most people will prefer to spend
their time just being 10x more productive in their language of choice.

Oh, and I learned more of Squeak faster without docs than I did
Borland's OWL library with about a half-dozen books (and I think OWL was
*easier* than MFC :) ).

Julian

[hidden email] wrote:

> I agree that there's no substitute for documentation written by humans for
> humans.  It's good that smalltalk code is easier to read than other code,
> but even the best code only gives you local information (unless you read
> every line in the damn system, inspect every varible, trace every routine) -
> you need overview information too.  And that needs to be organized and
> complete.  "Read the code" is a cop out that ignores that fact.
>
> Josh Scholar
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lynn Hales" <[hidden email]>
> To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
> <[hidden email]>
> Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 10:25 AM
> Subject: Re[2]: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference
>
>
>
>>Hello Gary and All, for me documentation is paramount.  By looking at how
>
> many Smalltalk programmers there are and how many "newbies" there seem to be
> there is a large barrier to entry that I think many can't or don't want to
> see.  It's documentation, how to's, cook books, best practices all in book
> form - electronic or paper. Class comments are very important but they are
> not even close to a substitute.  Up to date writings are mandatory for wider
> adoption and participation.  All the talk about learning the class library,
> how to program in Smalltalk, how to create GUI's in Morphic by reading Class
> comments is nuts.  That's not a best practices approach and by just looking
> around it is easy to see it isn't working.
>
>>If we want the benefits of wider participation in the Squeak world then we
>
> need to write and keep what has been written up to date.  Lynn
>
>>Monday, January 16, 2006, 4:22:29 AM, you wrote:
>
>
>

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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Blake-5
On Tue, 17 Jan 2006 00:56:42 -0800, Julian Fitzell <[hidden email]>  
wrote:

> Overview information is still great to have as well but we're talking  
> pretty broad here and I'd say at the level that could easily be handled  
> on a wiki.

Is there a Squeak Wiki dedicated to the classes?

> Oh, and I learned more of Squeak faster without docs than I did  
> Borland's OWL library with about a half-dozen books (and I think OWL was  
> *easier* than MFC :) ).

OWL was definitely easier than MFC--but it wasn't easy by any stretch of  
the imagination.

Visual Basic's ascendancy was no accident.

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What is SqueakRos (was Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference)

Edgar J. De Cleene
In reply to this post by Blake-5
Blake puso en su mail :

> I have to say, having visited the site, I'm not quite sure what SqueakRos
> is.
For the record.

SqueakRos begins in a bar, in front of UTN.

At the moment , about 12 persons, from both UTN and UAI (public and private
Universities here).

Begins when Martin Altobello send mail to list , similar to many what this
days I see (the one what starts these is one) and assemble the yahoo groups
site.

We agree on start trying to see how Morphic works.

I buy one copy of On to Smalltalk and one of the white book of Mark Guzdial
, via Amazon ( before Argentina goes off the civilized world).

So , hard times, people going to profitable things and some new people
discovering the bad , but only , tutorials in Spanish.

Eventually, I learn enough to support German Boccoleri and Emilio Oca in get
Squeak 3.4 on a iPaq 3600 (the start of SqueakLight).

Today, we managed to grow pass 100, have people of Spain and other Spanish
speaking countries, few non Spanish speaking.

And one Spanish swiki, with some pages of official swiki translated , and
some tutorials made.

Now I hosting several "experiments" on my Mac, open to any what wish.

I try as hard as could to improve myself, learning of many masters here and
spreading the word on people what never read or hear about Squeak.

This days , I could convince several young people on not to spend summer
only in going to river or whatever young's do.

We are recording our "lessons" and putting on the ftp (elpelotero)
And having a members blog, a SqueakLightChronicles blog, a ComSwiki 1.5 ,
etc.

Maybe I don't answer your questions.

But if you join, sure we have tons of fun for you, I see this list going too
boring, except good quotes of Tim and a long time none from Goran.

What I don't promise is  we could support you as I don't know what you do
with squeak.

Cheers.

Edgar






       

       
               
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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Stéphane Rollandin
In reply to this post by Lynn-2
Lynn Hales wrote:
>  All the talk about learning the class library, how to program in Smalltalk,
how to create GUI's in Morphic by reading Class comments is nuts.
That's not a best practices approach and by just looking around it is easy
to see it isn't working.


well it worked for me. never read a single book on Smalltalk.
reading squeak-dev (all of it !) is very useful though.


Stef


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Re: Re[2]: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Gary Fisher-3
In reply to this post by Lynn-2
Lynn;

"Up-to-date" is a slippery concept when you're dealing with a dynamic
system.  Not only is Squeak evolving day by day, but a given installation of
Squeak / Smalltalk changes substantially as it's used.  The reason I
suggested books tied to specific versions of the language was not because
there's nothing up to date but because they all offer a stable starting
point from which both the language and the student can *get* up to date.

Having said that, though, I would certainly agree that rich opportunities
exist for those who can write good training materials.

As for barriers to entry, my opinion is that the the reason every kid
doesn't leave school knowing Smalltalk  is more religious/political than
practical.  I'm incensed that we're teaching kids to use a stinking word
processor and calling it "computer literacy."  Don't get me started.  <G>

Gary


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lynn Hales" <[hidden email]>
To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers list"
<[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2006 1:25 PM
Subject: Re[2]: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference


Hello Gary and All, for me documentation is paramount.  By looking at how
many Smalltalk programmers there are and how many "newbies" there seem to be
there is a large barrier to entry that I think many can't or don't want to
see.  It's documentation, how to's, cook books, best practices all in book
form - electronic or paper. Class comments are very important but they are
not even close to a substitute.  Up to date writings are mandatory for wider
adoption and participation.  All the talk about learning the class library,
how to program in Smalltalk, how to create GUI's in Morphic by reading Class
comments is nuts.  That's not a best practices approach and by just looking
around it is easy to see it isn't working.

If we want the benefits of wider participation in the Squeak world then we
need to write and keep what has been written up to date.  Lynn

Monday, January 16, 2006, 4:22:29 AM, you wrote:

GF> Rich,

GF> Others have offered far better than two cent's worth; all I've got is
one
GF> shiny penny.  As has been pointed out, Squeak and Smalltalk are dynamic
GF> systems which change both with development and with use, so a generic
book
GF> is bound to be at least somewhat inaccurate.  My suggestion, therefore,
is
GF> to look into a book which defines or even includes the precise version
of
GF> Squeak (or other Smalltalk) upon which it is based.  This will, by the
GF> nature of the beast, leave you with a more or less outdated version of
the
GF> language, but it shouldn't be outdated by much and can probably be
updated
GF> (as can you) fairly easily.

GF> The most current of these, as far as I know, is Stef's "Squeak: Learn
GF> Programming with Robots," ISBN 1590594916.  This book takes the reader
by
GF> the hand, assuming nothing, and leads on to a pretty fair overview of
both
GF> Squeak / Smalltalk and of programming in general.  A huge advantage of
this
GF> book is the author's active participation on this list.

GF> Two more excellent choices are Mark Guzdial's "Squeak: Object-Oriented
GF> Design with Multimedia Applications" (ISBN 0130280283) and his later
GF> "Squeak: Open Personal Computing and Multimedia" (ISBN 0130280917).
Both of
GF> these are based on older versions of Squeak (which they include) and
deal
GF> especially, as you might guess, with Squeak's particular strengths in
GF> multimedia, but both are quite useful.  Finally, "Squeak: A Quick Trip
to
GF> ObjectLand" (ISBN 0201731142) by Gene Korienek et al, teaches Smalltalk
in a
GF> conversational manner which some love and some hate, using Squeak
(included)
GF> as its foundation.

GF> None of these are "references" per se, which as others have pointed out
is a
GF> tough thing to do, but any of them can bring the user to the point where
the
GF> self-referencing features of Squeak / Smalltalk can be understood.

GF> I hope that helps.

GF> Gary


GF> ----- Original Message -----
GF> From: "Rich" <[hidden email]>
GF> To: <[hidden email]>
GF> Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 9:23 PM
GF> Subject: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference


GF> So that I don't have to keep posting queries to this list like the one
GF> I just posted, I was wondering if anybody could recommend a good,
GF> thorough Squeak/Smalltalk language reference.  So far searching online
GF> I've found alot of "The 5 minute intro to Smalltalk" type stuff, but
GF> as these intros becomes less helpful as I try to do more interesting
GF> stuff (after all, you can only add 2 numbers or filter a list so many
GF> times in the Workspace before the "coolness" wears off ;-).  Thanks
GF> alot.

GF> -Rich



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--
Best regards,
 Lynn                            mailto:[hidden email]




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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

Serge Stinckwich-4
In reply to this post by Bert Freudenberg-3
Bert Freudenberg a écrit :

> Am 16.01.2006 um 10:00 schrieb Marcus Denker:
>
>> On 16.01.2006, at 09:21, Cees De Groot wrote:
>>
>>> On 1/16/06, [hidden email]
>>> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>>> Documentation, and it's lack is one of my pet peeves from my working
>>>> life,
>>>> so forgive me my passion on this subject.  But perhaps I can say
>>>> something
>>>> useful.
>>>>
>>> Yup, but please don't cut trees for it. Documentation in bookform
>>> (even electronic, like PDF) is all but unusable in Smalltalk.
>>
>> I disagree. Of course, once you know how to use Squeak, you don't need
>> a book. But a book woukd be crucial if the goal is to make it easy for
>> new people to learn it.
>>
>> First problem: People who want to discover Squeak won't *believe*
>> that a book is not needed. Don't even try. If the goal is to make
>> Squeak easy
>> to learn, write a book. Kind of like an API to implement. Leran ==
>> Book. No book,
>> no learn.
>>
>> Another thing is that a book should tell you the stuff that is not
>> trivially apparent,
>> like how to use Squeak to find more infos so you don't need that book ;-)
>>
>> It should talk about Design, Patterns, good style, good ideas (e.g.
>> testing), stuff
>> like that. You can't tell me that this is "apparent" from just looking
>> at Squeak
>> (especially as Squeak is mostly an example of what *not* to do!)
>>
>> And trees: That's what it is, even today. I print every paper I have
>> to read,
>> I don't know many people who read pdfs on screen.
>>
>> I don't think that a language can be successfull without having
>> "the book" published. E.g. Ruby's success ouside japan is
>>  unthinkable without the book.
>
> +1
>
> However, for such a book you need a great author, particularly for the
> Good Style part, which should not be a separate part but mention it in
> passing. I'm a bit sceptic the community could create such a thing, I
> rather think some individual would have to take this on. There have been
> people on this list with a great writing style, but it's a major
> undertaking none-the-less.
>
> Something that would be possible for the community might be updating the
> Orange Book for Squeak. That would be particularly helpful to newbies,
> learning the Smalltalk way of interactive development, rather than the
> edit-save-compile-run-crash-cycle they're usually used to. This is the
> basic thing you cannot learn from looking at source code.
>

I like the idea to adapt the Orange book to Squeak (or to translate it
in french for example) but what about the copyright ?


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Re: Good, thorough Smalltalk reference

stéphane ducasse-2
In reply to this post by Blake-5
I do not really think that so much is changing.

        Traits: you do not have to talk about them
        method annotation: same here
        bugs fixes:
        MC and packages

So for the good style part I do not see why squeak is changing.


> On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 02:22:15 -0800, Bert Freudenberg  
> <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> However, for such a book you need a great author, particularly for  
>> the Good Style part, which should not be a separate part but  
>> mention it in passing. I'm a bit sceptic the community could  
>> create such a thing, I rather think some individual would have to  
>> take this on. There have been people on this list with a great  
>> writing style, but it's a major undertaking none-the-less.
>
> I tried to sell a publisher on a book like this (for VAST) back in  
> the mid-'90s. Even though I never could sell it, I'd still love to  
> do it.
>
> It is a huge undertaking, of course, and I haven't had the time/
> money to do it "for fun". When thinking about how it would break  
> down, I've come up against Squeak's volatility. So many fundamental  
> things about Squeak are changing right now.
>


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Re: Squeak kinda starts up - disaster recovery issue [Hobbyist]

Squeak List
In reply to this post by tblanchard
Todd,
 
Thanks for your response. I tried the alt (period) and nothing happens - opening a process viewer is probably not going to happen in that poor image:)
 
If  "The unresponsive UI occurs when you execute such code as a doit (doit's are performed in the UI thread and so the Ui pauses until your action is completed).", then how about deleting all of the doits in the .changes back to before the problem started - and whatever other changes were made also. Gonna try that in a bit here - see what happens.
 
I think I am not clear on where damage actually happens... the .sources never seem to complain - I have heard the VM complain, but not in this case. The .image and the .changes: I guess that the damage is done in the .image where I made the mess. So the .changes is just a file that records everything I do in the .image - kept seperate for this reason (a disaster in the .image)? If so, deleting doits/whatnot in the .changes file won't actually change anything in the .image? Wow, those sound like some newbie questions::))
 
I just tried starting the same image after taking the .changes and .sources out of the working directory just to see... and exact same thing. I thought I would maybe at least get the missing sources message.
 
I am just looking for a bit of clarity on this damage issue in general now. That image will rest in peace once I try a couple more things.
 
For me, this is one of those things I have to be in the middle of (instead of reading about) and getting some sort of explaination from a real person (instead of reading about it).
 
Fortunately, this is a very generous and helpful list:)
 
Thanks,
 
Ken
 
 

Todd Blanchard <[hidden email]> wrote:
In my experience, slowdowns occur when you have runaway processing - infinite loops are kind of bad, infinite recursion is really bad.  Before long this will set the garbage collector and allocator to thrashing and this is probably part of your slowdown.  The unresponsive UI occurs when you execute such code as a doit (doit's are performed in the UI thread and so the Ui pauses until your action is completed).

Command or alt-period (depending on whether you are windows or mac) will halt the current task and pop up some debuggers.  The first debugger to open is the one you're interested in - I usually end up with 4 or more and have to keep closing them to get to the pertinent one.

For your sick image, try cmd or alt period immediately and see if you can get debuggers to pop up.

Another thing worth doing is to open a process viewer and look for runaway processes.  I've had such things when doing seaside apps that I needed to hunt down to restore performance.

Good luck.


On Jan 16, 2006, at 7:14 PM, Squeak List wrote:

Hello all,
 
I was happily loading audio samples into Squeak... a few problems, a lot of looking at the sound classes.... but overall, being pleased that I was able to get the samples in and get them to play back as I wanted.
 
Then, as sometimes happens when I do something incorrectly, (and in this case I don't recall exactly what I did: probably wrote some ugly workspace code to try playing back differently or something of that nature) Squeak slows down. By that, I mean that dragging windows, typing anything, etc., goes very slowly. This has happened other times and I am sure it is because of my own bad code. Usually, I do a manual garbage collection and just wait a bit: usually the problem just goes away within a minute. No debuggers or anything like that open or appear when this happens. And then everything is back to normal (well seems to be anyway).
 
So, what happened w! as that I saved when Squeak was in that "slowed down" mode. I didn't try re-opening the image until the next day. What happens is this: I have the folder that holds all of my Squeak stuff maximized on the desktop (Win XP). I drop the questionable image onto the VM and then the frame/outline of the Squeak window shows up, but I still see the contents of the background maximized folder. I minimize both windows. When I maximize the Squeak window, the frame is there, but inside of it is nothing but a charming black color. Task manager shows Squeak using high 90% of cpu. This is 3.9 alpha - update 6704, as are the other images I use (other images work fine). The mouse takes the usual shape when in the window, but clicking anything does nothing. Clicking the X to close the window brings up the usual confirmation if I want to save before quitting (I think I have always hit NO). The window closes and that is that.
 
Since I did have a decent amount of  "working/good" code in that image, I searched high and low for how to recover from disaster. I imagined that that mysterious .changes file would let me rollback whatever I had done to cause this problem. It didn't quite work that way, but I was able to use find the "Recent changes in file" from the file list to get most of what I wanted. Kinda tedious, but I did recover almost everything - enough to not write this until a week after this happened. At this point it is more of a curiosity if there is any way to actually get that image to "open all the way". Also, this has definitely changed my feeling about the certainty I used to feel when I saved what I was working on... Now I save a lot more often, and never save if Squeak is in one of my induced "slow down" modes.
 
Otherwise, Squeak Rules:)
 
Ken


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