Serious Squeak (other "survey")

JJ,

===============================================
I agree that business needs to be a big priority. After all, it has
really
been business that has driven the successful open source projects (well
most
of them).
===============================================

No argument.


===============================================
But I still maintain that the web is the GUI for business applications.
===============================================

Argument :)  Well, I at least want to define what you mean by a business
application.  I am quite skeptical that web browsers are going to
replace fat clients over night.  What about embedded systems and
servers?  I will admit that a service that is (securely) configured via
a web interface has some appeal, but it is not for every device.

Another cash cow of mine might be described as an etch-a-sketch with a
type A personality.  That thing serving web pages to itself to avoid a
direct GUI is hard to envision.



===============================================
For
one thing, how do you deploy a native squeak app anyway? The way Dolphin
does it is by stripping out all the un-needed parts, packaging the
"non-app
related but needed" things into DLL's and then turning it into an exe.
But
as far as I know squeak doesn't have a stripper like that, and I would
expect it to be years away.
===============================================

Agreed.  What's the problem? :)  Humor aside, one would simply lock down
the image, perhaps dumping unneeded packages/change sets.  You could
also go the other way: synthesize the image, starting with a kernel and
running a script or a tool that loads the required stuff, and saves the
imaged (locked down) under a new name.

Note that I have no idea how to do that (other than by extrapolating
from the lockdown package on SM), but it seems reasonable.  Dolphin
would have a significant edge on deployed size (as well as the ability
to deploy in-proc COM servers), but AFAIK, there is nothing to stop us
from giving users an icon that launches an "exe" created with Squeak -
just create a shortcut that names the VM and the image.  With current
network speeds, I am much more worried about the feel of the resulting
Squeak UI than I am about packaging, distributing and installing it.



===============================================
But you can have a seaside app up and doing work for your business in
literally minutes, depending on what you want to do. As a matter of
fact, I
would be willing to bet that with the persistancy work Keith has been
doing,
you can go from nothing at all to a functioning Content management
system in
squeak faster then any other system out there.

Not to mention the fact that in my company (and I would expect this of
any
company of size) it is a big deal to roll a desktop application out.
Every
release has to go through rigerous testing, the Q&A group, possibly an
after
hours deployment, etc. etc. But a new website I can just put up. And
then
*everyone* has it. That is a pretty big advantage.
===============================================

Should not your web app go through the same level of testing?  All a web
site does is simply distribution - the design/coding/debugging/testing
is just as hard as a desktop app.  If the web app deals with money,
lives, confidential info, etc., then it should be _very_ carefully
tested, all the more so because any nut with a web browser has a
ready-made client on his wireless PDA.  I am not advocating "security by
obscurity", but a web server is very quickly discovered, and even more
easily challenged  =:0  Correctness is also a concern.  Could a quick
change suddenly start corrupting old data?  Is the new data being
written readable and correct, etc.?

Turning it around, I just "put up" new desktop apps.  Of course there is
a lot of automated testing and some sanity checking of the critical
pieces as I go.  I wouldn't dare try it in any language (at least that I
have seen so far) except Smalltalk.  Again, I worry more about the
security of the web components (which exist in the system as a whole)
than I do about the desktop apps.

Bill




Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: [hidden email]
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029

> As always, I am missing messages and I missed your first one.
>  If you were referring to anything I said, then let me
> respond:  I don't believe web 2.0 should replace the desktop
> entirely.  Of course I still plan to use Morphic or whatever
> to develop and would always want that.  But as a developer it
> doesn't matter what I see.  Only to me.  But for my users,
> the best, easiest way is just the web I think.  For most
> things.  Not all of course.

Agreed!

Ramon Leon
http://onsmalltalk.com 

Am 17.10.2006 um 19:56 schrieb Milan Zimmermann:

> Has Tweak widgets been built with a similar "L&F pluggability"  
> intended,

Yes, in so far as the logic ("this is a button generating a #fire  
event") is decoupled from the graphical object on the screen (the  
button's "costume"). In principle it should be possible to replace  
the current costumes with, e.g., native widgets.

> and if so are there some simple examples to play with?

Well, the only project that actually tried was Sophie. Sophie widgets  
are derived from the default Tweak widgets. They use bitmap skins.  
Whether that was "simple" I don't know, the Sophie developers could  
tell, but I guess not ;-)

You could start writing your own widget costumes, replacing the  
default widget library.

- Bert -

On 2006 October 17 16:57, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
> Am 17.10.2006 um 19:56 schrieb Milan Zimmermann:
> > Has Tweak widgets been built with a similar "L&F pluggability"
> > intended,
>
> Yes, in so far as the logic ("this is a button generating a #fire
> event") is decoupled from the graphical object on the screen (the
> button's "costume").

Thanks.

:)

and thanks - i will look at Sophie and try to find an example there...

Milan
> You could start writing your own widget costumes, replacing the
> default widget library.
>
> - Bert -

Hi folks,

I think many people try to be too serious, or at least to look so, which
give them the feeling of self importance. But they forget what really matter
is to enjoy what you do. The best thing can happen is, if your work is your
hobby, if it is a kind of "toy for adults". People usually lose capability
of playing at some age and exchange it for false importance feeling. And it
take some time to discover this ability again.

May be enjoying your work is the reason many people like to join some
open-source projects - so they can use their skills in something just for
having fun (and to be useful too).

On the other hand, I think it would be useful if squeak provided some "nice"
interface for "business" too.

Enjoy!

---
Marian
occassional squeak { 8@)=^TM } user, but its permanent admirer



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I'm a little slow on this whole replying business... But there were other
efforts for skinning as well. One I am fond of, and looks great (IMHO),
but doesn't cover everything Zurgle does (some widget Morphs) is called
simply Skins 2 by Stephan B. Wessels.   It's on SM, and also on Steve's
page:

http://www.preeminent.org/squeak/
See also: http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/1797

I've not looked to see if this works in anything newer than Squeak 3.7.
These are bitmapped themes, which are slow on slow machines, but have
seemed perfectly fine on machines with a 500 MHz PPC/x86 CPU or better. I
personally love it- I prefer the look of a lot of Ice WM themes plus to XP
or OS X.

I don't mean to start (or help fuel) yet another battle about native UI
and the way Squeak looks, but let me just say this:

1. If you want or need a native look for your app, check out the wxWindows
port for Squeak. I've not kept up on it, and I imagine it is far from
perfect, but the demo seemed neat enough.

2. If you want or need a native or nativeish look for your app *that bad*
investigate a Smalltalk that provides it. Ambrai, Dolphin, VisualWorks,
ST/X, etc.

3. I theme my Squeak images. Not always, but I tend to. I always really
like Henrik's bluelook, but I (or anyone else to my knowledge) never
ported it to 3.x, where it is broken due to there being a lot of Morphic
changes between 2.x and 3.x.  I think theming is a good way to make Squeak
look more "professional," which usually translates directly into "less
colorful and less fun."  I think you can achiveve this without having a
theme that looks just like the OS you're on.  The new look in 3.9, IMHO,
is a step in this direction- it feels much less ancient.

For instance:
http://www.d.umn.edu/~areichow/squeak/sq-w-theme.jpg

Or, an image with the same theme installed, plus new fonts:
http://www.d.umn.edu/~areichow/squeak/images/ajr34.image
http://www.d.umn.edu/~areichow/squeak/images/ajr34.changes

4. As always, it depends on your market, but consistent native UIs are
becoming a thing of the past.  So many people are using AJAX web apps,
Flash apps, downloaded apps with their own look completely, etc. This
isn't a cop out- I think we should have both for Squeak, but as always,
she who wants it the most is probably going to have to do the work, or
they can use what is available.

5. I, personally, prefer having a nice, non-native looking UI to a crappy
emulation of native UI. Most of the time, they don't look quite right, and
I feel it is more jarring to have a subtly weird wannabe native UI than
something completely different, but still clean, usable and good looking-
the latter we encounter almost every day somewhere online.  I prefer what
is in the above sq-w-theme.jpg screenshot to what I have seen in the past
in VisualWorks or Java's Swing (at least the OS X Aqua theme).  I like a
real, native UI if it's the real thing- but I hate nothing more than
something that is aiming to and pretending to be consistent and falls
short.

I'm sure there are a lot of possible objections to what I just wrote, and
I wouldn't be surprised- I've been pretty out of touch with the Squeak
Community and its State of the Art for 3 years.  But, we've had this
discussion a thousand times.


Regards,
Aaron

[hidden email] || rev in #squeak on irc.freenode.net
   "Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must
         raise themselves to Liberty." -- Emma Goldman

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

     Well put, Aaron!


-C

--
Craig Latta
http://netjam.org/resume