Jtalk, a Smalltalk for web developers

Hi,

I would like to share a project I'm working on on my spare time: Jtalk
Smalltalk.

http://nicolaspetton.github.com/jtalk
https://github.com/NicolasPetton/jtalk

Jtalk is an implementation of the Smalltalk language that compiles into
JavaScript.

Some features:
- it is written in itself (including the parser/compiler)
- it is self-contained
- it compiles into efficient JS code
- it uses the Squeak chunk format
- Pharo is considered as the reference implementation

I think Jtalk can be compared to CoffeeScript[1], Objective-J[2] or
Clamato[3], from which it reuses some ideas and code.

Jtalk includes an IDE with a class browser, transcript and workspace, an
HTML canvas similar to Seaside and a jQuery binding.

It is still a young piece of code, and some important features are still
missing/incomplete.

Cheers,
Nicolas Petton

[1] http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/
[2] http://cappuccino.org/
[3] http://clamato.net

Hi all,

To add with Aida/Web plans how we will use Jtalk: I namely see very nice
oportunity to cross the border from server to the client (web browser)
with Smalltalk! That is, we can build web apps in pure Smalltalk and run
them on the client, unchanged. Even more, we can partition the app and
decide where to run, part on server, part on client, whole on server,
whole on client... And this can be done at runtime!

So, Nicolas work actually opens a whole new horizon for Smalltalk on the
web development front. That's why Jtalk will already be part of next
version of Aida, for experimentation purposes for start.

So, thanks a lot, Nico!

Best regards
Janko


On 14. 03. 2011 19:36, Nicolas Petton wrote:
--
Janko Mivšek
Svetovalec za informatiko
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www.eranova.si
tel:  01 514 22 55
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gsm: 031 674 565

Thanks nicolas
I want to have a look at your code :).

Stef

On Mar 14, 2011, at 7:36 PM, Nicolas Petton wrote:

Le lundi 14 mars 2011 à 21:53 +0100, Stéphane Ducasse a écrit :
> Thanks nicolas
> I want to have a look at your code :).


Sure, you can browse the code from the class browser (available in the
web page) or directly the st source in the chunk format here:
https://github.com/NicolasPetton/jtalk/tree/master/st

Cheers,
Nicolas

I like very much the idea!

Noury

On 14 mars 2011, at 19:36, Nicolas Petton wrote:

Noury Bouraqadi
http://car.mines-douai.fr/noury
--
-6th National Conference on
“Control Architecture of Robots”
24-25 may 2011, Grenoble area, France
http://car2011.inrialpes.fr/

-19th ESUG International Smalltalk Conference
22-26 August 2011, Edinburgh, UK
http://www.esug.org/Conferences/2011

-19èmes Journées Francophones sur les Systèmes Multi-Agents (JFSMA’11)
http://www.univ-valenciennes.fr/congres/jfsma2011/
17-19 Octobre 2011, Valenciennes, France

I will read the rest :)

eval: aString
        ^{'return eval(aString);'}
!

visitBlockNode: aNode
        stream nextPutAll: '(function('.
        aNode parameters
            do: [:each |
                stream nextPutAll: each]
            separatedBy: [stream nextPutAll: ', '].
        stream nextPutAll: '){'.
        aNode nodes do: [:each | self visit: each].
        stream nextPutAll: '})'

visitMethodNode: aNode
        | str currentSelector |
        currentSelector := aNode selector asSelector.
        nestedBlocks := 0.
        earlyReturn := false.
        stream
            nextPutAll: 'smalltalk.method({', String cr;
            nextPutAll: 'selector: "', aNode selector, '",', String cr;
            nextPutAll: 'source: unescape("', aNode source escaped, '"),', String cr;
            nextPutAll: 'fn: function('.
        aNode arguments
            do: [:each | stream nextPutAll: each]
            separatedBy: [stream nextPutAll: ', '].
        stream
            nextPutAll: '){', String cr;
            nextPutAll: 'var self=this;', String cr.
        str := stream.
        stream := '' writeStream.
        aNode nodes do: [:each |
            self visit: each].
        earlyReturn ifTrue: [
            str nextPutAll: 'try{'].
        str nextPutAll: stream contents.
        stream := str.
        stream
            nextPutAll: String cr;
            nextPutAll: 'return self;'.
        earlyReturn ifTrue: [
            stream nextPutAll: String cr, '} catch(e) {if(e.name === ''stReturn'' && e.selector === ', currentSelector printString, '){return e.fn()} throw(e)}'].
        stream
            nextPutAll: '}', String cr;
            nextPutAll: '})'

ok now I understand.

Stef

On 14 Mar 2011, at 19:36, Nicolas Petton wrote:

> I would like to share a project I'm working on on my spare time: Jtalk Smalltalk.
>
> http://nicolaspetton.github.com/jtalk
> https://github.com/NicolasPetton/jtalk
>
> Jtalk is an implementation of the Smalltalk language that compiles into JavaScript.

Really impressive!

Senders/Implementers would be nice to browse the code.

Since the implementation is relatively small, it makes an excellent example of how to implement Smalltalk.

Sven

PS: On Safari, the 'Class Browser' button does not seem to work.

     Yay! :)


-C

--
Craig Latta
www.netjam.org/resume
+31  06 2757 7177
+ 1 415  287 3547

Beautifull and elegant. Nice, that you used PP.

Uh oh, there are many jtalks already:

On 3/15/11, Sven Van Caekenberghe <[hidden email]> wrote:
....
> Since the implementation is relatively small, it makes an excellent example
> of how to implement Smalltalk.

Yes, the download of the Javascript files is just 160kB.

And the license is MIT!

Hannes

On 3/15/11, Richard Durr <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Beautifull and elegant. Nice, that you used PP.

What is PP?

--Hannes

On 15.03.2011, at 13:14, Hannes Hirzel wrote:

> On 3/15/11, Richard Durr <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Beautifull and elegant. Nice, that you used PP.
>
> What is PP?
>
PetitParser

Norbert

On Mar 15, 2011, at 1:14 PM, Hannes Hirzel wrote:

> On 3/15/11, Richard Durr <[hidden email]> wrote:
>> Beautifull and elegant. Nice, that you used PP.
>
> What is PP?
>
PetitParser

http://www.tudorgirba.com/blog/petitparser-tutorial-at-deep-into-smalltalk-school


--
Marcus Denker  -- http://www.marcusdenker.de
INRIA Lille -- Nord Europe. Team RMoD.

Le mardi 15 mars 2011 à 10:53 +0100, Sven Van Caekenberghe a écrit :
Thanks :)
>
> Senders/Implementers would be nice to browse the code.
Yes, the IDE is very immature. Code checking before compiling is
missing, and better browsing tools too. The class browser isn't even
able to commit changes to disk yet.


>
> PS: On Safari, the 'Class Browser' button does not seem to work.
It should work now.

Cheers,
Nicolas

Le mardi 15 mars 2011 à 12:10 +0000, Hannes Hirzel a écrit :
> On 3/15/11, Sven Van Caekenberghe <[hidden email]> wrote:
> ....
> > Since the implementation is relatively small, it makes an excellent example
> > of how to implement Smalltalk.
>
> Yes, the download of the Javascript files is just 160kB.
This is with the Smalltalk sources. Without it, it will be much smaller
for deployment.

Cheers,
Nicolas

>
> And the license is MIT!
>
> Hannes
> _______________________________________________
> seaside mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/seaside

On 2011-Mar-14, at 14:36 , Nicolas Petton wrote:

> Jtalk is an implementation of the Smalltalk language that compiles  
> into
> JavaScript.

Cool!

I took a look at the jtalk.deploy.js file and it looks pretty readable.

It's long been on my to-do list to do something like this, but I was  
thinking of developing in the Pharo/Squeak image and then deploying to  
JS (translating Smaltalk bytecode to JS).  Your jtalk.deploy.js would  
provide a great platform for that.  But maybe the bytecode->JS  
translator is already part of your system, or in your plans?

As for the name, I was going to suggest that you might try jstalk, but  
then I found:
        http://jstalk.berlios.de/

../Dave

CONTENTS DELETED

Impressive. I am curious to see what we can build at the top of.

Alexandre


On 14 Mar 2011, at 17:02, Nicolas Petton wrote:

--
_,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:
Alexandre Bergel  http://www.bergel.eu
^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;._,.;:~^~:;.