Run a Pharo world on WebBrowser.

I thinking do an application for run in desktop, browser and mobile devices. I want know if is REALLY possible run Pharo in a web browser, like a flash/java applet/silverlight application, without problems. Somebody has proved that? How is difficult for the user install the mechanism in browser for run the Pharo image?

Thanks for the help.

I would look at Lively Kernel, and maybe email Dan Ingalls. I think he said that he was toying with a Lively Kernel using Smalltalk instead of JS and may even have some code. At the least, it is a great example/proof that you can have a Morphic world in a browser.

HTH,
Sean

NullPointer, in the past squeak could run in webbrowser there were plugin (VM working as a flash plugin that add to be installed
in a webbrowser client), the problem is that is was a hell to make work (not because of squeak vm but because of the specific windows
and other OSes idiosyncrasies. So it was not maintained. May be squeak still supports that. I do not know.

Now it does not mean that we could not have that but time and people are not infinite in this world.

Now we are not microsoft and unfortunately cannot spend hundreds of engineers on one point (else we would have it).

So concretely if you want to do that look at seaside. Now I do not believe that the exact same widgets and application can run on desktop and mobile just because of screen space.
Stef

On Mar 18, 2011, at 11:59 PM, Sean P. DeNigris wrote:

On Mar 18, 2011, at 11:38 PM, nullPointer wrote:

> I thinking do an application for run in desktop, browser and mobile devices.
> I want know if is REALLY possible run Pharo in a web browser, like a
> flash/java applet/silverlight application, without problems. Somebody has
> proved that? How is difficult for the user install the mechanism in browser
> for run the Pharo image?

In the past, the way etoys was used was that you install the VM with a standard
image as a plugin for the browser. Then .pr (Projects) where loaded just
like much more interactive web pages.

There where multiple problems with that

a) It's a lot of work to keep the vm plugin working for real. A lot of time was
     invested from the side of the etoy team on that.
b) Even though it's just "please install the plugin", people just don't do it.
     (partly because they are not allowed to, e.g. in a school setting)
c) Projects... are problematic. Far too low level. Changes on the image lead
    to big problems if you want to be able to load old projects (as they are just
    a dumb of parts of the image... this will be especially fun as soon as you start
    to change real things in the system.)

No idea what the latest state is.. but projects like Scratch decided it's easier
to do a java (or flash?) based player app for the Scratch projects instead.

There are two interesting developments:

-> JavaScript. Millions are invested in JS VM technology. So one can start to do
real smalltaks in JS. (Personally, I think having your own real VM, not one implemented
ontop of another VM is preferable, though. Especially if you plan to do real strange things
in the futuer as opposed to just wanting a smalltalk system in the browser.)

-> Google Native Client.

That  one is very impressive. But it's unclear what googles plans are.
We now they have no fear of promoting something and yet then kill it
after people start to use it for real...    

        Marcus

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