Smalltalk: Requiem or Resurgence? {Dr. Dobb's Journal (05/06/06) Chan, Jeremy}

Hi,

Am 12.05.2006 um 01:15 schrieb Mike Hales:

just as a remark: I've had always trouble to convince marketing  
people with the look of VW, even 7.3 (or 7.4). It was astonishing -  
they always cried "hey, that's not windows" at demos with VW. They  
have a remarkable sense for "native" windows look :-))

 From a developer point of view (VW and .Net C#), VW looks good from  
a absolute point of view, but there is something missing. I have  
great hope for pollock, the new GUI framework. But it comes sooooo  
late....

My experience is that: if it is important to look like "native"  
windows application, it must be perfect and provide the expected GUi  
in all detail and with all bells and wistles provided by .Net Windows  
Forms and special GUI libraries available for that (not to speak of  
the possibilities of Windows vista and Windows presentation  
foundation = avalon). Here we are talking about Outlook Bars,  
draggable Toolbars, MDI look .........

On the other side, if there is no force to be like Windows, all is  
allowed. For this case, even squeak look does not matter.

Regards

Hans

On 5/12/06, Hans N Beck <[hidden email]> wrote:

You should try selling the Mac look to a Mac crowd. :-)  The UI emulation strategy isn't quite doing the job these days - there are always little clues/imperfections/holes that can be seen.  I also have had problems with VW's rendering speed on the Mac.  You can still watch it draw.  One would expect that drawing the text in a scrolling list would be instant these days but it is not.

Kendall Shaw puso en su mail :

> If your program doesn't look exactly like every other program and use
> exactly the same procedure they've had to use for every program, then
> game over, you might as well not have even bothered to write the program.
>
> In squeak, the controls don't look or behave like the other controls a
> user will use on their computer, so game over, you might as well not
> have even bothered to write the program

Oh, so how we got cars instead horses ?

Or plains when man not fly?

Or TV when nothing like exist before?

You have a 3270 terminal like green screen these days ?

I stop because should go to chase a Mammut for dinner  ::)





               
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Hi Michael,

on Thu, 11 May 2006 22:28:23 +0200, you <[hidden email]> wrote:

Possibly even more when you expand VM (in the above) to VM+compiler; i.e.  
parts of VM+(optimizing)+compiler to be dynamically inlined into the user  
code ;-) No wonder they are talking about (meta-)circularity.

/Klaus

Am 12.05.2006 um 03:17 schrieb Kendall Shaw:

> The fact that squeak has it's own desktop, effectively makes it  
> it's own platform for the purposes of desktop applications.
>
> If your program doesn't look exactly like every other program and  
> use exactly the same procedure they've had to use for every  
> program, then game over, you might as well not have even bothered  
> to write the program.

So Firefox shouldn't have been written? iTunes? Winamp? Etc.?

> I don't think you could easily distribute it as an rpm or a debian  
> package etc. and deal with dependencies between squeak  
> applications. I can't use installshield to integrate it into  
> someone's squeak applications.

I think your utterly wrong here.

> For all practical purposes, a desktop application written in squeak  
> will only be used by squeak programmers. Note the term: "desktop  
> application".

And I think you'll be proven wrong with Sophie:

        http://www.geeksrus.com/sophie/2006-05-09.html

- Bert -

> So my suggested plan would be to
> a) improve the button list immediate feedback
> b) improve and extend the progress bar
> c) make use of the progress bar in (many) more places
> Then it might be worth spending time or money to improve the visuals.

My feeling would be that including the visual designer earlier may be
more effective. Perhaps even at the start in an advisory way.

Also if the visual designer produces helpful designs and plans then some
of this work could be completed by others somewhat independently of the
above.

I, like Todd, would be willing to invest in this area.

Z.

At 13:51 12.05.2006, Bert wrote:

++++++

>>For all practical purposes, a desktop application written in squeak
>>will only be used by squeak programmers. Note the term: "desktop
>>application".
>
>And I think you'll be proven wrong with Sophie:
>
>         http://www.geeksrus.com/sophie/2006-05-09.html
>
>- Bert -


An excellent illustration to this thread. 2006-05-09.html doesn't work in
my Opera web browser and it crashes my IE.
--Trygve




--

Trygve Reenskaug      mailto: [hidden email]
Morgedalsvn. 5A       http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~trygver
N-0378 Oslo           Tel: (+47) 22 49 57 27
Norway

Bert Freudenberg puso en su mail :

> And I think you'll be proven wrong with Sophie:
>
> http://www.geeksrus.com/sophie/2006-05-09.html
Bert:

I wish thanks for link. I saw the site WWWOOOOOOWWWW.

Now I know still 49 days of anxious waiting for try Sophie.

The only other thing what could drive me more nervous is FIFA Soccer World
Cup, what starts earlier :=)

Edgar






       
       
               
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On 5/12/06, Bert Freudenberg <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Am 12.05.2006 um 03:17 schrieb Kendall Shaw:
>
> > The fact that squeak has it's own desktop, effectively makes it
> > it's own platform for the purposes of desktop applications.
> >
> > If your program doesn't look exactly like every other program and
> > use exactly the same procedure they've had to use for every
> > program, then game over, you might as well not have even bothered
> > to write the program.

This is a real problem.  It doesn't stop everybody from using Squeak,
but it stops many people from using Squeak.

> So Firefox shouldn't have been written? iTunes? Winamp? Etc.?

Firefox is different from earlier browsers, but it fits seamlessly
into Windows.

As a long time Mac user, I thought that iTunes was a brilliant Mac
application.  I never read a manual, which is one of the tests of a
good Mac application.

I have never used Winamp.  But I think that the first two are not
counterarguments.

> > I don't think you could easily distribute it as an rpm or a debian
> > package etc. and deal with dependencies between squeak
> > applications. I can't use installshield to integrate it into
> > someone's squeak applications.
>
> I think your utterly wrong here.

So, explain how.  It is impolite to just say "you are wrong" and not
to explain why.

> > For all practical purposes, a desktop application written in squeak
> > will only be used by squeak programmers. Note the term: "desktop
> > application".
>
> And I think you'll be proven wrong with Sophie:

I hope Sophie will be an exception.  But even if it is a success, it
does not prove that the general public readily accepts applications
that look like Squeak.  If you do something profound enough, people
are willing to compromize to get it.

-Ralph Johnson

Ralph Johnson wrote:

> I hope Sophie will be an exception.  But even if it is a success, it

Me too :-)

> does not prove that the general public readily accepts applications
> that look like Squeak.  If you do something profound enough, people
> are willing to compromize to get it.

A major point about Sophie is that it is built with actual (interaction)
designers working on the UI. (the design shown in the video is incomplete)

A problem with most open source software -not just squeak- is that they
are skinned with programmer art, interaction design by programmers and
built for programmers.

Michael

+1
And multiple windows!  I like the idea of integrating wxSqueak into the main
line.

Ron Teitelbaum

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tim Rowledge
> Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 11:02 PM
>
> My current pet peeve on 'feel' is the abysmal feedback provided (or
> rather not provided) by buttons and lists. When you click a button or
> a list item something visible should happen *immediately* to show
> that the press/click has been picked up.

Hi fellow soccer fans and Squeakers!

"Lic. Edgar J. De Cleene" <[hidden email]> wrote:
> The only other thing what could drive me more nervous is FIFA Soccer World
> Cup, what starts earlier :=)

And with that cue I can let you know that this weekend I will be opening
up my World Cup betting site written in Squeak/HttpView for World Cup
2006. I sat up last night and entered all the teams/games and only have
to push the image to the server and configure Apache.

It will be available at:

        http://worldcup.krampe.se

And this time around I will also put the code somewhere for people to
play with. :)

regards, Göran

"Trygve Reenskaug" <[hidden email]> said:
Does the page not working illustrate something? What does it illustrate? It
opens just fine in my Opera (8.51, on Windows 2k). The video doesn't work,
probably because I've got an ancient QuickTime, but that's beside the point.

frank

Hi!

I am not really arguing here - just mentioning some pointers about these
bullets that might be interesting to hear about:

Kendall Shaw <[hidden email]> wrote:
> If your program doesn't look exactly like every other program and use
> exactly the same procedure they've had to use for every program, then
> game over, you might as well not have even bothered to write the program.
>
> In squeak, the controls don't look or behave like the other controls a
> user will use on their computer, so game over, you might as well not
> have even bothered to write the program.

http://www.wxsqueak.org

...or just use Dolphin for win32 apps - it is really nice for that.
Or turn the app into a localhost webapp, like we are currently doing
with the issue tracker we are writing.

> It doesn't matter what I think about it. It's what the user is likely to
> think about it.
>
> Most importantly though, I can't open emacs on squeak's desktop.

wxSqueak doesn't "force" a deskop. Try the demo. And even so - why not
run Emacs on the side? :) Or inside Squeak:
        http://map.squeak.org/packagebyname/svi

And then we have Areithfa Ffenestri or what the heck it is called. ;)
(the code for supporting multiple windows from within Squeak - but
wxSqueak already gives you that actually)

> Also, I can't easily check a squeak application into a version control
> system, separate from other squeak applications, but together with other
> source files in other languages, and other files.

Mmmmm, "easily"... well. There have been numerous approaches of
mirroring Smalltalk code into files for that like MonticelloCVS or
CVSTProj. I even hacked up a almost fully functional cvs pserver
protocol implementation. ;) But these days Monticello is so convenient
to use and just needs a file dir or an ftp server for team work - there
is no real incentive to bother. Especially not now that MC2 is seeing
the light.

And if the idea is to just "bundle" a snapshot with other snapshots of
software - then just dump the .mcz into your choice of repo, no big
deal.

> I can't run find on a combination of squeak classes and other files.

You shouldn't. ;) But apart from that aspect - adding a mirroring
mechanism of source into files that is "live" shouldn't be that hard if
someone really wanted to do it.

> I can't easily include it in a test procedure involving multiple languages.

Hmmm, why not? I mean - what makes Squeak harder to use in a test
procedure than *any other* mixing of languages?

> I don't think you could easily distribute it as an rpm or a debian
> package etc. and deal with dependencies between squeak applications.

You can very easily deploy a Squeak app as an rpm or deb. The simplest
way is to just bundle the VM with the image. No external deps at all.
And I can't see why Squeak would add any further obstacle than any other
language in that respect.

> I can't use installshield to integrate it into someone's squeak applications.

Not sure what you mean. Making an "installshield" installer for a Squeak
app is trivial. Just test:
        http://swiki.krampe.se/gohu/23

That is old though, Cees has improved it a bit and I am using it right
now for our issue tracker.

regards, Göran

Hi Trygve,

on Fri, 12 May 2006 14:40:10 +0200, you <[hidden email]> wrote:

No problem here with Opera 8.54/7730 and IE 6.02.2900.2180.xpsp2...

/Klaus

[hidden email] puso en su mail :
Goran:

Very good news.

For code using HttpView, I send a few days ago a notice
 about a web game drived by a special Squeak image.

You should be proud as HttpView is a crucial part of it.

I wish luck for first phase against England and our neighbor Paraguay.

Still all people here hard remember last time Sweden send us to home earlier
as expected :=)

Edgar





       
       
               
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Am 12.05.2006 um 14:45 schrieb Ralph Johnson:

The point actually wasn't about using Squeak, but writing desktop  
apps with it. Who cares what Emacs looks like?

IMHO they are. The claim was that "if your program doesn't look  
exactly like every other program" it's a failure from the start. And  
these are examples that prove that claim wrong.

>> > I don't think you could easily distribute it as an rpm or a debian
>> > package etc. and deal with dependencies between squeak
>> > applications. I can't use installshield to integrate it into
>> > someone's squeak applications.
>>
>> I think your utterly wrong here.
>
> So, explain how.  It is impolite to just say "you are wrong" and not
> to explain why.

Maybe I'm being impolite, but really, what's so hard about it? You  
stuff a VM, an image, and a startup script into an RPM and you're  
*done*. You design your app with support for loadable modules (its  
not actually hard to load a class from a file) and have this  
extension installed by installshield. Where's the problem?

I can answer this myself - nobody did it, yet. We're a small  
community, compared to others. But as soon as someone needs it, it  
will get written.

We *do* have a regular windows installer for our Squeak app. On the  
Mac it's even simpler, you drag the program icon from our CD to your  
program folder and you're done.

I did *not* say the app should "look like Squeak". We're talking  
about "written in Squeak" (see the quoted lines above).

- Bert -

Hi,
    I could not read the whole thread, but I will give my opinion on
this topic. Sorry if I say something somebody already said.
    I think the problem with Smalltalk is not technical, nor a problem
of education either. We all now that Smalltalk has nothing to envy from
Java, C++, .Net and the like, but the other way around. We all know that
Smalltalk has a great VM, has a great environment and tools and no other
main stream language can compete with Smalltalk on this features.
    Smalltalk can be use in large project (it is not true that only
scale in small projects, we have a project with 7155 classes and works
great!... I can not image a Java project of 7155 files...) and I see
that Smalltalk is not difficult to learn. Every time we contract a
junior programmer, they feel fine with the language in a period of two
weeks... so, the syntax is not a problem, not the class library or the
debugger, etc.
    The problem with Smalltalk is a MARKETING problem, no technical. We,
people of the computer field, like to have new things all the time... we
like to have new widgets like mp3 players, palms, cell phones, smaller
and faster laptops, etc. "New" it is almost a synonym of "Better", but
more important, "new" means "cool".... Because of this, most programmer
think that  new languages are better, just because they are new they are
"more cool". So, the problem with Smalltalk is that it is OLD.
    Let's take Ruby as example, is it better than Smalltalk? We all now
that it is not.... Perl? no... Phyton?, no... What's the difference?
They are newer... Now Ruby seems to be getting a great attention... why?
just because Ruby On Rails?. I believe Ruby On Rails is helping to get
the attention, but Ruby is a "new" language (at least, it does not have
a long history), and that helps, and compared with Smalltalk, it is younger.
    The word Smalltalk has a history, and almost everybody relates that
word to not sucessful histories (I believe, they do it wrongly). Every
time you say "we use Smalltalk", people ask "Isn't that a language for
university only?", "Isn't that language old? how does it integrate to
databases? can you do web apps with Smalltalk?", etc.... So, I have came
to a sadly conclusion, Smalltalk will never be a main stream language
because it is OLD.
    Therefore, my CRAZY suggestion is to create a NEW language, a new
language that we can name it "COOL" (because it is cool ;-) ), but this
new language is, at the end, Smalltalk... but nobody has to know it!
nobody has to relate it to Smalltalk because if they do it, it will
loose all its "momentum"... With a NEW language, that it is COOL at the
same time, and of course, with a little bit of help from one big
company, COOL will be widely accepted... and nobody will care about its
technical aspects as  most people don't do with the current main-stream
languages.

    Anyway, just an opinion...
    Bye, Hernan.

   

Ralph Johnson wrote:


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Lic. Edgar J. De Cleene wrote:
> I stop because should go to chase a Mammut for dinner  ::)
>  

I'm sorry... I shouldn't clog up the net with email bits such as this
but... I just can't help it....

That Is Funny!
ROTFL