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Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

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ponyatov

Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

Good day

I'm playing with custom little Linux for retrogaming console based on
Raspberry Pi 4.

Is Pharo is a good frontend system (GUI) for a game console?

There is no mouse or keyboard by default, only joystick. So running
Smalltalk interface on system bootup has some questions on usability. Also,
it should be able to run external native binary programs that can use OpenGL
and SDL/SDL2 so I'm not sure is the Pharo graphics system will be run on
direct framebuffer without X11, and is it stable to be used with such
libraries.

--
Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html

ponyatov

Re: Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

But I still think a lot about using the Smalltalk system as a user interface,
as it lets to program for any unskilled user have no programming background,
and especially like the feature of the cross-powerup persistence.

--
Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html

vince

Re: Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

In reply to this post by ponyatov

Hi

I would use Lua Love (https://love2d.org/) for such things.

Vince

-----Original Message-----
From: Pharo-users [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ponyatov
Sent: Friday, 17 January 2020 9:29 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Pharo-users] Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

EXTERNAL: Do not click links or open attachments if you do not recognize the sender.

Good day

I'm playing with custom little Linux for retrogaming console based on Raspberry Pi 4.

Is Pharo is a good frontend system (GUI) for a game console?

There is no mouse or keyboard by default, only joystick. So running Smalltalk interface on system bootup has some questions on usability. Also, it should be able to run external native binary programs that can use OpenGL and SDL/SDL2 so I'm not sure is the Pharo graphics system will be run on direct framebuffer without X11, and is it stable to be used with such libraries.

--
Sent from: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html__;!!I_DbfM1H!V4Xnp6AaGOc64G2uGZb1U4FQnxQNdLxIUBb2c_cIqr2Zakh1Z3erb1Hpkpllw1Vm8pZM0WxqAw$

Steve Quezadas

Re: Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

What do you like about Lua? curious;

On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 5:20 PM Vince Refiti <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi

I would use Lua Love (https://love2d.org/) for such things.

Vince

-----Original Message-----
From: Pharo-users [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ponyatov
Sent: Friday, 17 January 2020 9:29 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Pharo-users] Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

EXTERNAL: Do not click links or open attachments if you do not recognize the sender.

Good day

I'm playing with custom little Linux for retrogaming console based on Raspberry Pi 4.

Is Pharo is a good frontend system (GUI) for a game console?

There is no mouse or keyboard by default, only joystick. So running Smalltalk interface on system bootup has some questions on usability. Also, it should be able to run external native binary programs that can use OpenGL and SDL/SDL2 so I'm not sure is the Pharo graphics system will be run on direct framebuffer without X11, and is it stable to be used with such libraries.

--
Sent from: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html__;!!I_DbfM1H!V4Xnp6AaGOc64G2uGZb1U4FQnxQNdLxIUBb2c_cIqr2Zakh1Z3erb1Hpkpllw1Vm8pZM0WxqAw$

vince

Re: Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

Hi Steve

Significant things I like about Lua:

It is small and simple. It is even simpler that Smalltalk. I can explain Lua to my children by telling them to write everything as functions. With Smalltalk, navigating the IDE is difficult and getting to grips with the class structure is far more difficult.

It is fast, especially LuaJit.

It is embedded in a wide variety of other software and can be used to script said software, e.g., Redis, nginx, Love (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_applications_using_Lua).

It is also a superior alternative to bash, tcsh, etc for shell scripting. LuaJit FFI is very straightforward.

Lua coroutines is concurrency done right and is very simple.

I use Lua Love (https://love2d.org/ ) to teach my children programming. It is a very good transition from Scratch/Phratch. Games and apps can deployed to all common platforms (Windows, Linux, Android, iOS).

I also have been looking at programming Roblox with Lua (https://developer.roblox.com/en-us/learn-roblox/coding-scripts ) as an alternative.

I use Lua Lapis (https://leafo.net/lapis/) for personal family sites. It runs from inside nginx and is hellishly fast.

In summary, a small, embeddable, easy to use language with a wide variety of uses.

Vince

From: Pharo-users [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Steve Quezadas
Sent: Tuesday, 28 January 2020 1:09 PM
To: Any question about pharo is welcome <[hidden email]>
Subject: Re: [Pharo-users] Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

EXTERNAL: Do not click links or open attachments if you do not recognize the sender.

What do you like about Lua? curious;

On Thu, Jan 16, 2020 at 5:20 PM Vince Refiti <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hi

I would use Lua Love (https://love2d.org/) for such things.

Vince

-----Original Message-----
From: Pharo-users [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of ponyatov
Sent: Friday, 17 January 2020 9:29 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [Pharo-users] Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

EXTERNAL: Do not click links or open attachments if you do not recognize the sender.

Good day

I'm playing with custom little Linux for retrogaming console based on Raspberry Pi 4.

Is Pharo is a good frontend system (GUI) for a game console?

There is no mouse or keyboard by default, only joystick. So running Smalltalk interface on system bootup has some questions on usability. Also, it should be able to run external native binary programs that can use OpenGL and SDL/SDL2 so I'm not sure is the Pharo graphics system will be run on direct framebuffer without X11, and is it stable to be used with such libraries.

--
Sent from: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html__;!!I_DbfM1H!V4Xnp6AaGOc64G2uGZb1U4FQnxQNdLxIUBb2c_cIqr2Zakh1Z3erb1Hpkpllw1Vm8pZM0WxqAw$

tbrunz

Re: Is Pharo is a good frontend system for a game console?

In reply to this post by Steve Quezadas

What makes Lua a cool programming language?

It shares a lot of great characteristics with Pharo...

- Can do OOP, functional programming, imperative -- it's your choice.
- There are only 8 data types, and all are first-class values.
- Multiple return values! Constructs such as x,y = y,x.
- All functions are unnamed full lexical closures.
- Tables! Can be associative, arrays, or both -- simultaneously.
- Dynamic typing & dynamic structures; easily polymorphic.
- Loops can be controlled via user-defined iterator functions.
- Automatic memory management, 'weak' typing, finalizers.
- Can execute as a file, interactively in a REPL, or be embedded.
- Block comments can encapsulate code that includes comments.
- Highly portable, extensible, and has an excellent C API.
- Reflective global environment which can be replaced at run-time.
- Proper tail call elimination; allows deep recursion.
- Coroutines (for co-operative multi-tasking made simple).
- Strings are 8-bit clean & support unicode.
- You can have apps in other languages call out to Lua code.
- You can have Lua apps call out to code in other languages.

--
Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html