Re: Helvetia... in Squeak

Hi Frank,

See my answers below inbetween your mail:

> I've been playing around trying to get Helvetia working in Squeak. It's...
> not going well. So I thought I'd try get it working in Pharo, so I could
> play around with Helvetia - the point of the exercise - rather than futzing
> with porting issues.

I suggest that you download the one-click distribution from

    http://scg.unibe.ch/research/helvetia

or the image from my build server (they should be identical).

Loading the code manually doesn't work at the moment, because RB, OB,
eCompletion and the other dependencies evolved in the meantime and are
not compatible with Pharo 1.1.1 anymore.

> Now I've tried loading Helvetia into a Pharo 1.1.1 image (old, I know, but
> Helvetia says that it wants a 1.1 image), but things don't work too well - I
> have issues like OBPluggableShoutTextMorph not understanding #setText:,
> leaving me unable to open an omnibrowser. "Browser open" still works, but of
> course senders-of and implementors-of are all smashed for the
> afore-mentioned reason.

Helvetia only works in Pharo 1.1.1 images with the dependencies that
were available at that time.

> Now I see you have Hudson build scripts for Helvetia, so clearly you've not
> abandoned the project, so how do you do things? What base image do you use?
> A Pharo 1.3?

The builds are not running anymore. Helvetia is based on Pharo 1.1.1.
I don't have the time to maintain the codebase.

> If/when I get it working, would you be open to the idea of me working to
> separate Helvetia's dependencies on things like Polymorph, OB, etc. so I can
> use Helvetia in Squeak?

Helvetia is all about integrating with tools, which means not only the
compiler but also the editors, syntax highlighting, code completion,
refactorings, etc. Moving Helvetia from Pharo 0.9 to Pharo 1.1 was a
lot of work, because the loader needs to replace the compiler and
introduce all kinds of subtle hooks into the running system.

I doubt it is possible to get a working version of Helvetia in Squeak
without a significant amount of work. After all, only outdated or
forked versions of RB, OB, eCompletion, Shout, ... work in Squeak.
Also --- and that would be probably the fist and most important step
--- you would need to make PetitParser, RB, AST-Compiler, and
QuasiQuote work in Squeak. These are the base compilation-related
packages required by Helvetia.

HTH,
Lukas

--
Lukas Renggli
www.lukas-renggli.ch

On 12 May 2011, at 09:12, Lukas Renggli wrote:

> The builds are not running anymore. Helvetia is based on Pharo 1.1.1.
> I don't have the time to maintain the codebase.

That's a pity, it was/is quite impressive (I read your paper, have your PhD on my reading list).

But I understand.

Sven

>> The builds are not running anymore. Helvetia is based on Pharo 1.1.1.
>> I don't have the time to maintain the codebase.
>
> That's a pity, it was/is quite impressive (I read your paper, have your PhD on my reading list).
>
> But I understand.

It is a lot of work. It took me more than 1 year (about 1 month of
full time) to move Helvetia forward from Pharo 0.9 to 1.1.

Lukas

--
Lukas Renggli
www.lukas-renggli.ch

I thought that Helvetia also works in Pharo 1.2.1. At least I saw that Bifrost is using it. Am I wrong?

Cheers,
Doru


On 12 May 2011, at 17:43, Lukas Renggli wrote:

--
www.tudorgirba.com

"Speaking louder won't make the point worthier."

On 12 May 2011 17:47, Tudor Girba <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I thought that Helvetia also works in Pharo 1.2.1. At least I saw that Bifrost is using it. Am I wrong?

No, this is just RB and the AST-Compiler (RB to Pharo Compiler Bridge).

Lukas

--
Lukas Renggli
www.lukas-renggli.ch

Btw, loading into PharoCore 1.1 works again. I pinned compatible OB/RB versions.

Lukas

On Thursday, 12 May 2011, Lukas Renggli <[hidden email]> wrote:
--
Lukas Renggli
www.lukas-renggli.ch